Studies on The Red book of the Exchequer

102-8

R.8C

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT
FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

Digitized by Microsoft®

Cornell University Library
HJ1028 .R86

Studies on The Red book of the Excheguer

liiiiliiii

3 1924 030 226 819

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in

cooperation with Corneii University Libraries, 2007.

You may use and print this copy in iimited quantity

for your personai purposes, but may not distribute or

provide access to it (or modified or partiai versions of it)

for revenue-generating or other commerciai purposes.

Digitized by Microsoft®

Cornell University
Library

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030226819

Digitize by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

STUDIES ON THE RED BOOK
OF THE EXCHEQUER

Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

STUDIES ON THE EED BOOK
OF THE EXCHEQUER

BY

J. H. BOUND, M.A.

AUTHOB OP ' QEOPPREY DE MANDEVILLE ' ' FEtDAL ENGLAND ' ETC.

'Not the least of Mr. Round's merits is that the next
generation will never want to know how much rubbish he
has swept or helped to sweep away '

Sir p. Pollock {English Historical Beview)

ISO Copies only. Printed for Private Circulation
Digitized byMcrosoft®

p^ (pulp^f

Digitized by Microsoft®

PEEFACE

As these studies are intended for historical scholars
alotte, I have thought it better to issue them privately
and at my own cost, the interest taken in original re-
search being here, unfortunately, very small. _ It has
been urged, plausibly enough, that critical work of this
character is out of place in books intended for perma^
nent reference. To those, however, who advance this
view it may not have occurred that, in some cases, there
is no other means of publishing such work- at all.
There are but two or three quarters in which, in this
country, it could hope to see the light. In one of
them a successful intrigue averted its publication; in
another, the ' English Historical Review ' — intended, it
is supposed, for this purpose, the avowed objection of its
present editor to all ' controversy ' whatever has made
discussion impossible.

A grave question, I submit, is thus presented to
scholars. It has now been definitely shown that it is
possible, in England at any rate, to publish a work of
historical importance, for permanent and universal re-
ference, so replete with heresy and error as to lead

astray for ever all students of its subject, and yet to run

■' Digitized by Microsoft® '' •'

VI PREFACE

the gauntlet of reviewerB, not only virtually unscathed,
but even with praise and commendation. With the
causes that make this possible I have dealt fully in the
text. What I would here insist upon is that there is
no means of revealing the truth about the work or ex-
posing the errors with which it teems, unless an expert
who is capable of doing so has the public spirit to de-
vote his time and toil to the work and to publish the
result of his labours at his own expense. It is simply
because I felt it my duty, as possessing the special
knowledge required, to undertake this thankless task
that I now publish these studies.

In denouncing ' The Eed Book of the Exchequer ' as
probably the most misleading publication in the whole
range of the Rolls series, one has obviously no right to
do BO, if the matter were merely one of personal preju-
dice or opinion. But the statement rests, it will be
found, on incontrovertible evidence, namely upon that
of the public records, if not of the MS. itself. Again, a
work of this character could not justly be condemned for
those slips and small mistakes of which a certain percen-
tage must always, in fairness, be allowed for. These,
however, are quite distinct from serious and misleading
errors and, above all, from that wanton introduction of con-
fused and wild guesswork, which is the special feature of
these volumes, and which is so strangely at variance with
the rules of the Rolls Series. Of its baseless chai'acter
these pages afford conclusive evidence, although the confi-
dent assertions in whiohthe editor indulges have imposed,
not unnaturally, on those who have not tested them. I
cannot doubt that the competent scholar who peruses
these pages will discover that the net result of ' The

Digitized by Microsoft®

PEEPACE . vii

Red Book of the Exchequer,' published officially at the
cost of the nation, is not the increase of historical
knowledge, but the introduction, on the contrary, of
error, often in the place of truth.

It must, however, be explained that these studies
contain but a portion of the destructive criticism
required by this singular work. Others^ equally
decisive, deal with special sections ; but as they are
constructive as well as critical, and establish historical
facts, in the place of ' erroneous fancies, they may
fittingly appear as contributions to the work of original
research.

The question of Swereford's authority, to which a
separate study is devoted, may not, of itself, be of much
importance, except as bearing on the value of mediasval
'authorities.' But, small or great, problems of this
kind should not, if raised at all, be left undecided. I
had found it necessary to raise it in dealing with
Knight Service ; and this — for reasons which no one,
apparently, is able to understand — was vehemently
resented by Mr. Hall. He had, of course, a perfect
right to rehabilitate Swereford's authority, if he had
the means of doing so ; and, so far from objecting, I
should have been among the first to congratulate him
if he had done so. It will be found, however, that he
could not rebut my case, and, indeed, that his efforts to
explain away the errors and misconceptions of Swere-
ford have resulted only in a demonstration that his
hero's authority is even worse than I had previously
cared to assert.

It is presumably due to the weakness of his case
that he has had recourse, unhappily, to making personal
Digitized by Microsoft® a,

VUl PEEFACE

charges instead of defending his statements when ex-
posed to expert criticism. It is neither intelligible
nor is it argument to dismiss such criticism as due to
mere ' wounded vanity.' As for alleged misrepresenta-
tion or, worse still, tampering with the text, I need not,
I hope, allude to such allegations further than to say
that they explain and aniply justify a tone which I
should, otherwise, have been most reluctant to adopt.

The growing interest that is now shown in palaeo-
graphy and 'diplomatic' has not removed, it would
seem, from England the reproach of being somewhat
backward in this department of learning. At Oxford,
it is true, the distinguished names of Mr. Madan and Mr.
E. L. Poole are a sufficient guarantee of sound and sober
scholarship. But at Cambridge and at the London School
of Economics the teaching, it appears, has been that
which is found in ' The Eed Book of the Exchequer.' It
is not only at these seats of learning, but also at the
Royal Historical Society, and possibly at the Public
Record Office, that a perusal of these papers may prove,
I trust, of interest, and even, perhaps, of service.

Digitized by Microsoft®

CONTENTS

« PAGE

I THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE .... 1

II THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER . . 17

•III ALEXANDER SWEREFORD 67

Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTIQUITY OF 8GUTA0E

Among tte most important innovations assigned to
Henry II is the introduction of the feudal tax known
as ' scutage.' Dr. Stubbs had frequent occasion to refer
to it as introducing a new principle, that of adopting
' the knight's fee, instead of the hide, as the basis of
rating.' It is the history and the incidence of this new
rating that lies at the root of Swereford's studies, and
that chiefly led to the compilation o^the ' Red Book of
the Exchequer.' ' The first point that we have to
discuss, in dealing with this tax, is the period of its
institution. Dr. Stubbs tells us that ' the term scutage '
was first employed under Henry II, in 1156 ; nor have
historians, till lately, challenged this conclusion. In-
deed, it has been universally accepted. The evidence,
however^ adduced by me in the ' English Historical
Review' (1891) has made them now, Mr. Hall admits^
in his' preface to the ' Liber Rubeus,' ' well disposed to
accept the earlier genesis of Scutage, which was utterly
denied by Swereford and other technical writers of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.'^, The actual words
of Swereford are these : ' temporibus enim regis Hen-
rici primi . . . nee inspexi vel audivi fuisse scutagia

' See the paper below on The Bed Book of the Exchequer (ed.
Hall), pubUshed in 1897.
2 Liber Bubeus, p. oli.

Digitized by Microsoft® B

2 THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE

assisa ; ' and the only criticism on this passage made by
me is that ' Swereford may be pardoned for his igno-
rance of the fact that scutage existed under Henry I.'
This, surely, might disarm his champion ; and yet he
complains, even here, of ' a fatal flaw in the indictment.'
My ' indictment ' is a statement that Swereford was
ignorant of scutage existing under Henry I ; and it is
he himself who tells us that he was.

The fact is that in the section he devotes to the
introduction of scutage and of knight-service into Eng-
land," Mr. Hall, as usual, ' seems to be labouring under
the delusion that Swereford's personal integrity has
been attacked.' ^ He talks of ' clearing Swereford's
reputation' (p. clvi), when, as we have seen, it has not
here been assailed. It is not I, it is he himself who
states that the ' geftesis of scutage,' before the reign of
Henry II, ' was utterly denied by Swereford,' and who
then triumphantly claims that he never did deny it !
Here are his own words : —

One of the heaviest charges under which Swereford, as
the reputed compiler of the Red Book of the Exchequer,
lies at present undefended, is in respect of the above denial
which he certainly seems to have made with great delibera-
tion.

And yet it might be possible to prove that this statement
cannot be shaken by the latest evidence which has been
brought against it, for Swereford does not say that the term
scutage has no earlier existence, but merely that he has
never found or heard of a list of scutages in the few re-
maining year-rolls of Henry I (pp. cli-ii).

I am not responsible for Mr. Hall's confusion : '

' Sec. VI. (pp. oxlix-olxv).

2 This phrase is taken from the Atlieiiaum review of the Liber
Rubew (Oct. 23, 1897).

' Compare Feudal England, p, 264, where I cite Swereford's very
words.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE S

I can afford to stand aside and watch him demolish an
' indictment ' invented by himself alone.

Apart, however, from this odd confusion, Mr. Hall
frankly owns that

The evidence above referred to deserves our most careful
consideration, for if its authenticity is once admitted, the
accepted theory as to the origin of knight-service in England,
and the equally familiar view of the institution of scutage
in the reign of Henry II, must be henceforth for ever
abandoned.

He accordingly devotes several pages to investigating
this question, asserting'that ' a solitary charter,' of about
1130, is my only evidence (p. clii). If it is genuine,
he himself assures us, ' Swereford's assertion is com-
pletely discredited ; and the theories of modem his-
torians which are based upon -that assertion will of
course share the same fate.' The subject being deemed
of this importance, we must briefly examine Mr. Hall's
argument. The first point he makes is that a clause
occurring in the middle of the charter must have been
an interpolation, because it is omitted from the tran-
script found in another Oottonian manuscript (Tit. A. 1).
So far from being, as he claims, distinctly the earlier of
the two, I have the very highest' authority for stating
that this latter manuscript is, if anything, rather later
than the other (Tib. A. VI) . It does not seem to have
occurred to Mr. Hall that the clause may as well, have
been dropped by the one scribe as interpolated by the
other. At the risk of being deemed presumptuous in
thus venturing to question the view of one who actually
lectures on paleography and ' diplomatic,' I shall have
to show how curiously little he knows of either subject.'

' See other instances in point below.

Digitized by Microsoft® b 2

4 THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE

In such a case as that of this charter, the expert judges
by the run of the words, by the sense they make, and by
the likelihood of interpolation : all three tests are in
favour of the challenged clause. I place it here in italic
type :—

solebat dare de scutagio quando scutagiwm currehat per
terram, meam Anglice : ita quod Eccleaia arrwdo non dabit
inde nisi Ix lihras quando scutagium per terram evenerit.*

The pun of the words explains how the scribe leapt,
as in similar instances, from one ' quando ' to the next ; *
the sense of the cbarter is not ijaproved, but impaired,
by omitting the clause (for Mr. Hall has overlooked his
tenses, ' solebat ' requiring ' currebat,' and ' evenerit '
answering to ' dabit ') ; and lastly there was no object
in interpolating a clause which does not affect the sense
of the charter.

The whole document, therefore, stands or falls
together ; and if the term ' currebat ' in the challenged
clause is strikingly 'technical' for so early a date,
Mr. Hall should remember that the Norfolk Inquisi-
tions, as, in dealing with them, he here insists, enable
us ' to antedate a certain phase in the technical pro-
cedure of Scutage by nearly half a century.' Nay,
more. I have lately dealt with a (cartulary) charter
granted by the son of a Domesday tenant, and therefore,
in all probability, even earlier than this. In it we find

' Liber Bubeus, II, olii.

' Oddly enough, there is, of this, an admirable illustration in the
lAber Bubeus itself. In its text of the ConsUiutio (p. 812), the scribe
has similarly leapt from one 'commedent' to the next, thus omitting
several words essential to the meaning of the text, and leading Mr.
Hall into woeful error (see below). The Black Book, which is the
better text, duly gives the omitted words.

Another excellent instance is found in a Scottish charter -vrith
which I deal in my Calendar of documents preserved abroad. The
name ' Haya ' occurs twice in it, and the soribe, leaping by mistake
t'om one to the other, has omitted the intervening witnesses.
Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE 6

mentioned ' communem geldam \jic] regis quae currit
per totam terram Anglie,' just as in the Ely charter we
find the king speaking of ' quando scutagium currebat
per terram meam Anglie.' The latter phrase, Mr. Hall
tells us, ' clearly implies an actual assessment entered
in the revenue rolls, .... points to the assessment of
periodical scutages in the lost Pipe Rolls of the reign
of Henry I.' ^ It would seem then that I treated
Swereford too gently in the matter : in the words of his
own champion he ' is completely discredited.' But
even without the challenged clause, the charter, we
learnt, ' is rather startling,' from its early mention of
scutage ; and while he dare not reject it, Mr. Hall
hints his suspicions. . We see him, if he will pardon
the expression.

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.
Just hiilt a fault, and hesitate dislike.

I shall now, therefore, produce several other charters,
before the accession of Henry II, in which scutage is
mentioned ; and if Mr. Hall replies, as he does, thai!
this scutage was a ' common assize,' and not ' an
assessment on- the knight's fee,' I can refer him to an
original charter below proviiig that in Stephen's days
scutage was already fully developed, and might have
been defined in the very words " employed in ' the
' Dialogus ' itself.

Combining the cases I have previously adduced'^

with those I have subsequently noted, we have, under

Henry I, an allusion by Herbert bishop of Norwich

(d. 1119) to the sum of 601. being exacted from him

' Liber Bubeus, pp. olii-iii.

6 THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE

' pro milifcibus,' ' and one about the same time, in
England, by Eustace Count of Boulogne to his knights
owing service ' in nummis.' '

A charter of aire. 1122 contains the phrase ' qnietum
. . . de omni expeditione infra Angliam vel extra An-
gliam, de denariis militum quando et quocunque mode
evenerint.' " The word itself definitely emerges in the
charter of the Earl of Chester to St. Evroul (1121-1129)
confirming his predecessor's gift ' liberam et quietam
ab escuagio,'^ while Stephen, as Count of Boulogne
(1125-1135), makes a grant to St. John's Abbey, Col-
chester, ' quietam ab scuagiis.' * When Henry I granted
to Christchurch Priory, London, a general charter of
exemption (before 1123), 'scutage' was among the
payments from which it was declared free,* and Madox
appealed to a writ of that king among the archives of
Westminster, directing that the abbot and monks of
Westminster are to hold ' terram suam de Peritona . . .
ita bene eb honorifice et libere et juste et quiete de
scutagio et omnibus secularibus consuetudinibus, sicnt
pater tuus primitus ipsi Ecclesiae dedit et concessit et
sicut ipsi postea melius tenuerunt, et tempore Hugonis
comitis etc' We are thus prepared for the charter of
Henry I, reducing the 100^., which the church of Ely
' solebat dare de scutagio quando scutagivm currebat per
terram,' to 60i!. ' quando scutagium per terram
evenerit.' "

Under Stephen, we have a charter granted by the

' Feudal England, p. 270.

» Collections for History of Staffordshire, ii. 195.
' Feudal England, 269.
* Cartulary of St. John's, fo. 20.

» Mon. Aug. VI, 167. • Feudal England, p. 2C8.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE 7

king himself, in which he confirms the queen's grant of

East Donyland to St. John's Abbey ' quiete ab omnibus

exactionibus, et de scutagio et de omni servicio militari '

etc' Even more important, however, are the charters

of Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke (d. 1149), which, like that

of Stephen, I have not, till now, made public. The first

of these is to Lewes Priory, and relates to Horsted

(Keynes), Sussex. It is an interesting illustration of

history, referring, as it does, to the earl's possession of

the Kape of Pevensey (' Honour de Aquila '), a fact,

I believe, only known from the mention, in the ' Gesta

Stephani,'^ of Pevensey being one of his four castles

when he rebelled against Stephen.

Sciant presentes et futuri quod ego Comes Gilbertus
Penbroc' donavi dec et sanote Marie et sancto Pancratio et
monachis ibidem dec servientibus in liberam elemosiiiam
servicium terre quam ipsi tenant de feodo Robert! de
Horsted in elemosina qiie de scutagio reddere soleh'at decern
solidos, et ipsum Robertum quietum clamo . . . illis dono
et firmiter concede in libera elemosina quicquid ipsi tenent
in rapo de Peveneshelle de cujuscunque feodo sit absolutum
et quietum de schyris et hundredis et placitis et querelis et
de omnibus "aliis consuetudinibus in bosco et piano, in aquis
et extra aquas et in pasturis quamdiu ego inde dominus et
potens fuero aut heredes mei . . . Test . . . Ricardo filio
comitis etc.*

This charter, which has for its witness the famous
' Strongbow ' of later days, would be of interest if only
as proof of the earl's tenure of the Eape and of the
precarious nature of his possession. But what we are
specially concerned with is his release to the priory of
the ' service ' (i.e. knight-service) due from the land

' Colchester Cartulary, fo. 14.
' Ed. Howlett, pp. 128-9.

8 THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE

referred to, whicb was, of course, equivalent to a ' gift '
of that service. The effect of the earl's 'gift ' was, to
release the priory from paying scutage on the land to
Eolbert de Horsted, and Eobert, in turn, from paying
it to himself, the earl, of course, being the party directly
responsible to the Crown.

The next and the most conclusive document is the
very interesting original charter,' by which the earl
confirms gifts at Parndon, Essex, on his fief. Here, at
length, we learn the fact that scutage was so established
an institution, in the days of Stephen, that it was levied
at either a marc or a pound on the knight's fee, just as
it would be under Henry II. The system, in short,
was fully developed. The land here granted was to pay
scutage as a tenth pf a knight's fee, 'quando even-
erit,' the very phrase employed in my charter oS
Henry I, while ' quando evenerint ' is similarly applied
in the Staffordshire charter above, to what it terms the
' denarii militum.' *

Notum sit cunctis fidelibus quod ego comes Gilbertus
concede ecclesie sancte Marie de Suddwercha terram de
Perenduna quam Johannes dapifer et Nicholaus de Epinges
dederunt prefate ecclesie cum Willelmo filio Eadmundi,
cujus erat ipsa eadem terra, liberam ab omni servicio excepto
scutagio quod quando evenerit unum militem dare xx sdidos
tunc ilia det ii solidos Si miles unus i marcam, i//a xvi
denarios,^ et hoc favore domini Talebot cui servitiuni ipsius

' Cott. MS. Nero C. Ill, p. 228.

' It was clearly a technical word, for in the charter of Henry II
(? 1157) exempting Colchester Abbey from Danegeld, etc. (Colchester
Cartulary, fo. 9), we find the interesting Exchequer passage : — ' Et
precipio vobis quicquid evenerit super predictas hidas de Danegeldis
et murdris et hidagiis oomputetis Vioeoomitibua in quorum BailUis
terre ille sunt. Et tantnndem detrahatar de somma rotuloruni
meorum.'

= Cf . the Carta of William ' de Abbrinois ' {Liber Rubetis, p. 192)
in 1166 : ' quando Bex accipit auxilium de niiUtibus xx solidorum,

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE 9

terre debetur, qui illam de me tenet. Capellam quoque et
decimam meam de dominio de Torp et omnem decimam
unde decimatio debet dari. et unam ex tribus piscinis que
ibi sunt et xl acras capelle adjacentes. Prseterea decimam
de Cupefald in messe, in vitulis, in agris, in porcis, in caseis,
et in omnibus que decimari debent more catholico tarn in
nemore quam in piano fideliter annuo, et in eodem manerio
vi solidatas terre ubi Canonici mansionem facere possunt
sibi in ospitium. Hec omnia confirmo hac mea present!
carta in redemptionem peccatorum meorum et peccatorum
comitisse Isabel et pro salute filii mei Ricardi et pro
animabus predecessorum parentum meorum et pro anima
Willelmi de monte fichet ex cujus feudo exstitit pars hujus
donationis. Et quecunque poterint adipisci vel donf) vel
mercatione in cujuscunque dominio feudi mei sit. Si quis
autem ex meis tenentibus ill aliquid humanitatis et caritatis
officium impartiri studuerit, ut in terris, in decimis et in
aliis elemosinarum largitionibus gratiam et remuneration em
a Deo omnium bonorum remuneratore et a nte promereri
valeant. Hoc vero factum est consensu Rioardi filii mei et
consensu comitisse Isabel uxoris mee qui sunt hujus donati-
onis testes, et Hervic[us] frater meus ; Philippus de
Humez ; Talebot ; Rogerus de Wanci ; Paganus de Cam-
paignes ; Robertus capellanus Comitisse ; Willelmus filius
Lamberti ; Paganus clericus ; Hugo clericus ; Turstinus
mareschal ; Rogerus de Perenduna ; Hubertus de Reinduna
'et ejusdem Huberti filius Willelmus.

In this case there was no release of the liability to
scutage, as there was in the other.

The charter contains much that is interesting. The
description of the tithes to be paid and the allusion to
their customary payment are peculiar features. The
statement that a portion of the gift was of the fee of
William de Montfichet, whose soul, therefore, was to
share the benefit, needs some explanation. William had

dabunt isti xii solidos, . . . et si marcam accipit, viii solidos dabunt ' ;
also the Dialogus de Scaccario (I, ix) on sontage : ' fit interdum, ut
decernat rex de singulis feodis militum summam aliquam solvi,
marcam scilicet vel Hfespfege^vl^/crosoft®

10 THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE

married the earl's sister, and his fief, with his heir,
passed at his death into the earl's keeping.^ The
Gloacester cartulary and the Montfichet ' carta' of 1166
illustrate the earl's dealing with his nephew's fief. The
occurrence of the earl's ' brother,' Hervey, as a leading
witness is very welcome. For this is no other than
Hervey de Montmorency (de Monte Marisco), who
afterwards shared with his nephew. Earl Gilbert's son,
the conquest of Ireland.^

Inextricably involved, in this section (VI) of Mr.
Hall's preface to the Red Boo^, with the question of the
origin of scutage are theories of the most far-reaching
import on its connection with the older system of taxa-
tion and with the introduction of knight-service. It is
ominous that, as in section VIII, we read ' that two
possible explanations might be hazarded,' and that ' we
may even be tempted to conjecture ' (pp. cxlix, clxiv).
Why restrict oneself to simple fact, when it is always
possible, even in oflScial publications, to ' hazard '
groundless conjectures ?

It is the closing portion of this section — some four
or five pages — which is devoted by Mr. Hall to
■what he terms the ' Assimilation of Scutage to the
System of Imperial [sic] Taxation.'

A few words are here necessary on the manner in
which one should approach serious historical questions.
When a theory is of fundamental importance, and when,
moreover, our leading historians are entirely agreed
upon its truth, decency requires that their conclusion^

' See my paper on the Abbey ot Stratford Langthome {Essex
Arch. Trans, vol. v. p. 141).
' See Feudal England, p, 628.

Digitized by Microsoft®

TEE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE 11

should at least be seriously assailed, before being
lightly dismissed as if requiring no consideration.'
And if a rival theory is to be advanced, affecting very
gravely our institutional development, it should not
only be supported by ample and indisputable evidence,
but also be set forth fully, carefully, and, above all,
consistently. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Hall has
almost a habit of springing upon us incidentally some
revolutionary theory, which he lightly takes as certain,
without troubling to prove it. And worse still, to the
bewilderment of students, instead of working up to a
clear and definite conclusion, he begins by insisting
on some proposition of far-reaching importance, and
ends by its virtual abandonment in a mist of vague
verbiage. He has obviously a perfect right to enunciate
any theory ; but he should, at least, make it clear to
himself before he advances it in public, and should
adhere to it consistently, or not advance it at all. .

Of this habit of his we have a perfect instance in
the pages of which I speak. Discussing an entirely
different subject, namely, the relations of the Crown,
the tenants-in-chief, and their under-tenants in the
payment and receipt of scutage, Mr. Hall suddenly
observes : —

in any case it is at least an interesting reflection that
not only was the classification of the military service of the
tenants-in-ohief according to knights' fees of far greater
antiquity than has been usually supposed, but also that
it did not necessm-ily disturb the ancient system of assess-
ment ' for imperial taxation, which, in the shape of a
common assize, continued to be apportioned according to the
old plan of hidaiion—/or scutage and aid, ' donum ' and

12 THE ANTiaUITY OF SCUTAGE

' assisa,' carttcage and hidage, and tallage — down to a far
later period (p. clxi).

The words I have italicised take for granted, under
the gaise of ' an interesting reflection,' that our
leading historians are entirely wrong in holding as a
fundamental maxim that a ' new s5rstem of rating land '
(as Dr. Stubbs terms it) was introduced after the
Conquest, in which the feudal unit of the knight's fee
replaced ' for the knights and barons ' the old Anglo-
Saxon unit of the hide. ' Scutage ' was reckoned on the
former, the new system ; ' hidage ' on the latter, the old
system. So at least we have all believed. As for
' tallage,' nobody could pretend that this was apportioned
in accordance with any possible system of ' hidation.'

We naturally ask on what evidence the above
startling theory is thus lightly propounded. The
evidence is an afterthought. Under the marginal
heading 'Assessment of land at the Exchequer,'
Mr. Hall informs us that four hides were, at the
Exchequer, reckoned as one knight's fee, and vice versd.
Now let us clearly understand, if its author does not,
what this statement means. It has been often held that a
knight's fee consisted normally of five (not foui') hides ;
but this is not what Mr. Hall means. ' For,' as he admits,
' it is true that the number of hides computed in an
individual knight's fee might and did vary, like the
number of acres which the hide itself contained.' This
admission is followed by what is really his proposition.

It is quite clear, however, that as the normal ' hide was
supposed to contain 120 acres, so the normal knight's fee

' It will be found that Mr. Hall throughout confuses ' normal '
with ■ conventional ' (i.e.' the Exchequer reckoning).

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE 13

contained 4 hides ' — a scale which seems to have been
recognised as late as the sixteenth century. Similarly,
assessments on the fee might be computed in terms of the
carucate and the bovate from the analogy of the ' common
assize.'

That is to say, there was a system of ' convertible
.assessments,'- which are thus described : —

One was based upon a conventional system of hidation,
adapted for the assessment of general feudal" taxation,
including the scutage. The other was the convenient system
of the knight's fee as a unit by means of which the assess-
ment could be calculated in a sort of decimal sum, which
saved the labour of reducing the normal fee to the denomi-
nations of the hide and the virgate (p. clxii).

The ' conventional system of hidation ' has been
explained by Professor Maitland and myself, and is
now well understood. It consisted in reckoning, at
the Exchequer, that a 'hide' was equivalent to four
' virgates,' and a ' virgate ' to thirty ' acres.' As this
relation was absolutely constant, the three denominations
were as easily convertible as our own pounds, shillings,
and pence. It will be seeA, therefore, that what Mr.
Hall means is that the ' knight's fee ' formed a higher
denomination, which at the Exchequer was reckoned
as equivalent to four ' hides ' (or ' carucates,' as the
case might be). He means this, or he means nothing.

The importance of such a discovery as this would
undoubtedly be very great. As is implied by Mr.
Hall at the opening and at the end of this section, it
raises the whole question of the origin of knight-service
in England : it supplies at once the missing link between
the old system of assessment and the new. But is it

' The only actual oases quoted by'Mr. Hall are three fees, from
Kirby's QiLest — not of 4 carucates each, but of 8, 8, and 4J (p. elxiv).

Digitized by Microsoft®

14 THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE

true ? For answer we need but glance at tlie sudden
and unexpected admission, two pages later :

It would be quite incorrect, however, to assume that all
or any of the above scales of assessment are capable of
being reduced to an exact formula. . . . But it is at least
probable ' that the normal holding which was generally
recognised at the Exchequer was that of the knight's fee of
foiir or more hides or carucates (according to the ever
varying value of the soil) to make up the valor of 20
librates (p. clxiv).

Compare these vague generalities (especially the
words I have italicised) with the definite proposition
from which we started ^ ; and it will be seen that the
writer has no sooner formulated his theory than
he lightly abandons it himself. The assessments, of
course, could only be ' convertible ' if a knight's fee
was always computed as equivalent to four hides. But
this, we learn, was not the case. Therefore it was no
more possible to convert ' fees ' into ' hides ' than it
would be now to convert pounds into shillings, if a
pound might mean twenty shillings ' or more,' and if
even this was only 'probable.' Mr. Hall's edifice
crumbles as usual almost as soon as it is raised.

To show that the whole passage (pp. clx-clxv) is
wrong from beginning to end, I must deal, as briefly as
possible, with the second part of the theory, namely the
convertibility, in the Exchequer system, of the term
' a knight's fee ' and 20 librates of land (p. clxiii) : —

the librate is now regarded as the equivalent of a
certain part of a fee. Many instances of the indiscriminate
use of these three systems will be found in the Red Book
itself. We constantly find the scribe reducing a money-

> The italics are mine throughout.
» P. 12 above.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE 16

payment to terms of the knight's fee, and in one case five
separate holdings, making together 3 fees, a half, a fifth,
and a holding of 74 librates, are added together as 7| fees
— 20 librates being counted to the fee (p. clxiii).

Of this ' constant ' practice, it will be seen, Mr. Hall
(fortunately) gives ns one selected instance, citing
' pp. 355-6 and 731 ' of his text. Now if it be a fact
that an Exchequer scribe, with nothing before him but
' a holding of 74 librates,' converted it propno moiu
into 3-j^ fees, by counting 20 librates to the fee, Mr.
Hall here proves his point.^ On referring: to p. 731,
we duly find the total given at 7| fees ; and — which is
more important — we find that the sum entered on the
Eollof 1168 represents 7f fees (p. 38). But when we
turn to ' pp. 355-6 ' the first point to strike us is that
one of Mr. Hall's holdings, namely ' a fifth,' exists only in
his own imagination ; it is not to be found in his text !
And this upsets the whole calculation. Apart from this,
iporeover, the tenant who makes the return does not, as
alleged, merely return ' a holding of 74 librates,' but
says that he is enfeoffed in Sawbridgeworth ' pro Ixxiiij
libratis terrse ; singulas xx libratas pro servitio j militis,'
that is to say, he was enfeoffed to hold it as 3^-^ fees.
With this information before him the scribe had not to.
' convert ' anything : he merely charged the tenant for
what he himself admitted — 8/^5- fees in respect of
Sawbridgeworth. And so, once more, Mr. Hall's
evidence collapses as soon as we test it.

One point more. We read above of the scribe
'reducing a vnonej -payment to terms of the knight's

• I have myself urged tliat 20 libratea was possibly the normal
valiie of a fee ; but we are here only concerned with a comventional
Exchequer reckoning.

Digitized by Microsoft®

IG THE ANTIQUITY OF SCUTAGE

fee.' What Mr. Hall meant was, in this case, not a
money-payment, but a money-raZiie. The two things
were not only distinct, but had no connection with one
another. How he can have so confused them into a
single ' form,' as he does on p. clxiii, passes human compre-
hension. The 'formula [that] A. B. pays 3s. 4d when
the King exacts one marc of Scutage ' obviously means,
as I have elsewhere explained, that he holds a quarter
of a knight's fee (whatever its extent or value). Either
phrase expresses his scutage assessment. It does not
mean, as Mr. Hall asserts, ' that he holds a normal
quarter-fee of one hide.' Still less has it anything to do
with the value of the holding in ' librates.' The very
charter I have printed above (p. 8) is an instance in
point. It affords absolutely no indication of the value
or area of the holding. Its payment formula merely
tells us that the holding was held by the service of one-
tenth of a knight. Any scholar who looks at page clxiii
will see at once that the writer is the victim of hopeless
mental confusion, and that ' the evolution of the 20
librate holding ' from the above scutage formula (with
which it had nothing whatever to do) is, to "speak
plainly, senseless.

' We may even be tempted to conjecture,' Mr. Hall
characteristically concludes, ' that the complex system
of enfeoffment and assessment . . . was merely the
shadowy fabric of a feudal dream ' (p. clxiv). Adapt-
ing his phrase, we may safely say — not as a matter of
' conjecture ' but of fact — that his complex system of
' convertible assessments ' is the shadowy fabric of a
dream.

Digitized by Microsoft®

17

THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER.

Second only in honour to Domesday Book itself, the
* Liber Rubeus de Scaccario ' has, for more than six
centuries, held a foremost place among our national
records. Prized by officials for its precedents, by
antiquaries for its vast store of topographical and
genealogical information, its well-thumbed pages have
been scanned by twenty generations of students. At
last — one may use the term advisedly, for the work was
announced as ' in the press ' for year's — almost all its
unpublished contents are made accessible in print.'

The responsible authorities of the Rolls Series could
not have selected an official more obviously qualified to
edit the great Exchequer register than was Mr. Hubert
Hall. Devoting himself with special zeal to the records
of the ancient Exchequer, he had produced, as the fruit
of his studies, ' Court Life under the Plantagenets '
(1890), and 'Antiquities and Curiosities of the Ex-
chequer' (1891), while the papers in the third and
seventh volumes of the Pipe Roll Society on 'the
system of the Exchequer ' were also from his pen.

• The Red Booh of the Exchequer, 3 vols. Edited by Hubert Hall,
F.S.A., of the Public Eeoord OfSoe . . . under the direotioii of the
Master of the Bolls.

Digitized by Microsoft®

18 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEB

There is, perhaps, no man living, certainly no English-
man, so intimately conversant with the early records of
what to the men of the twelfth century was already
the mysterious, the almost sacrosanct Court of the
Exchequer.

But Mr. Hall had further claims. As Director of
the Royal Historical Society, he was clearly an author-
ity on history, while his knowledge of paleography and
' diplomatic,' which was an essential requisite in the
editor of a corrupt and derived MS., comprising a
congeries of records, is vouched for by the fact that he
has undertaken to teach and lecture on these subjects.'
At Cambridge, also, Mr. York Powell (Regius Pro-
fessor at Oxford) stated before the Royal Historical
Society, 17 June 1897, 'Mr. Hubert Hall of the
Record OflBce is announced to lecture for the University '
on these subjects. (Transactions, xi. 35.) On every
ground, therefore, he was obviously the man for the work.

It should be scarcely necessary to say that an
official edition of an official MS. stands on a very
difierent footing from a book produced by a private
individual on his own initiative alone. The latter is
robed with no authority : if it is good, it will be praised
on its merits ; if bad, it cannot exercise much mis-
chievous effect. The whole case is altered when a
work is issued officially, published under the agis of
the Master of the Rolls and with all the jprestige of the
Public Record Office. It is not only that the work bears

■ ' Un cours de paliographie et de diplomatique a iik ouvert au
commencement dumoisd'ootobre 1897 d. Londres. . , . Le prof esseur
est M. Hubert Hall. . . . Les itudiants sont exero^s 4 la trausoription,
h. r^dition, et A remploi des textea ' (BibliotMcuic de I'Ecolc de Char-
les, Iviii, 518),

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 19

an official stamp : its inclusion in tlie famous Eolls
Series, no Jess prized abroad than at home, makes it,
permanently, a work of reference, and ranks it among
volumes illumined by the work of a Stubbs, a Maitland,
and a Luard. But the greater the position thus im-
parted, the greater also the responsibility, and the more
urgent the need for an expert appraisal of a work
certain to be widely consulted and accepted as of
special authority. And still more urgent is that need
when the subjects dealt with in the wofk are familiar
only to a very few, so that the majority of those who
consult it cannot appraise its statements for themselves.
Indeed, when made with great assurance, and with an
even greater show of learning, they will be accepted
without question, even though an expert, without an
effort, could overthrow them one by one. This has
actually come to pass. Alone, the Athenaeum critic
has sounded a note of warning; and even he is loth, he
says, to mar the ' chorus of praise ' which has greeted
this amazing work.

Before I proceed to that expert criticism which, as
I have shown, is imperatively required in the case of
such a work as this, I must say something of the loose
talk about the gratitude due to the authors and editors
of books. When a student produces, as a private
enterprise, a work of original research or an edition of
an historical MS., he will certainly expend much labour
and probably some money on a work which cannot bring
him any pecuniary return. To such a man gratitude is
due, more gratitude, to speak plainly, than he is likely
to receive.' But when the above Athenceum critic tells

' Since these words were, written, Mr, Edward Jenks, in his
Digitized by Microsofmi

20 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXOHEQUEE

us that we owe to Mr. Hubert Hall ' gratitude ' and
' heartiest thanks ' for having edited the Red Book, one
wonders whether he has forgotten the fact that official
editors are paid for their work. We are, therefore, free
to judge their productions apart from any obligation of
' gratitude ' for their having undertaken to produce
them. If they are good, they ought to be praised ; if
bad, they ought to be exposed in the most unsparing
manner, because their very official character makes their
errors and their heresies infinitely more mischievous
than if they had appeared only in some private work.

In his well-known and brilliant lectures on
' Mediaeval and modern history,' Dr. Stnbbs has made
some just remarks on the ethics of historical reviewing.
He reminds us that a work should not be condemned —
especially in an anonymous review — because its author's
opinions differ from those of his reviewer. It is most
. desirable, in all controversy, to distinguish errors of fact,
of date, of reading, and so forth, from what are merely
matters of opinion or conjecture. In the criticisms I
shall now offer on ' The Red Book of the Exchequer,
it will, I hope, Ije found that they are in no way
dependent on mere personal opinion, but that they rest
on indisputable evidence, and sometimes even on the
text itself, or indeed on its editor's own words.

remarkable work, Lww a/nd PoMics in tJiB Middle Ages, has thus
frankly acknowledged the fruits of original research undertaken by
experts: 'But for these labours, often ill-requited and always ren-
dered in- a high spirit of devotion to the cause of leEurning, no such
task as that which the writer has set before himself could have beeb
essayed. If in any degree he has succeeded in rendering an intelli-
gible account of a period hitherto but little known to the ordinary
reader, it is to these self-denying scholars that he owes his success '
. (P- vii).

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE 21

It is one of the first and chief duties of an editor,
in the Rolls Series, to append marginal dates to the
chronicle or documents he deals with. This is, at all
times, a matter of importance, but never more so than
in these volumes, where the reader is often dependent
on the editor's marginal date for the right com-
prehension of the text. Now the very first portion of
Mr. Hall's first volume is marred in this respect by
fundamental error.

As the roll of the Exchequer was made up, every
year, at the Michaelmas session, the fiscal year never
changed, but always ran from Michaelmas to
Michaelmas. But the regnal years, dating as they
did from the coronation of the reigning king, changed
of necessity with each sovereign. Those, for instance,
of Henry II began in December, while those of his
successor Richard were reckoned from September 3.
Now each roll was styled, and known as, the roll of a
given year of a given king ; but this meant the roll of
the Michaelmas which fell within that given year.
That is the essential point to remember. The roll, for
instance, known as of 10 Henry II, would be the roll
made up at the Michaelmas of his tenth year, namely
Michaelmas 1164. Thus his regnal and his fiscal
years differed by less than three months. On the other
hand, his son Richard's first Tegnal year was
September 3, 1189-September 3, 1190; but the
roll of his first year was that of Michaelmas 1189, and
covered the previous twelve months. There was thus
almost a year's difierence between the two reckonings.
The editor, wholly oblivious of this, has dated the first
fiscal year as '1189-1190' instead of '1188-9,' and
Digitized by Microsoft®

23 THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUEB

has projected this reckoning right through the reigns
both of Richard and of John, datijag every roll a whole
year too late (pp. 9-12, 70-134). The strangest thing,
however, is that Mr. Hall, who upholds Swereford when
wrong, does not follow him here where he is right,
and where he carefully explains the reckoning.
Henry II died, he writes, ' post rotulum anni regni sui
xxx""™ iiij'"™ completum, propter quod intitulatur in
eodem, Botnhis regni Eegis Henrici xxx^' iiif et yus
ul.Umus.' The thirty-four rolls of Henry extend from
1155 to 1188, both inclusive, and the ten of Richard from
1189-1198, similarly. The first roll of John is that of
Michaelmas 1199, not, as Mr. Hall makes it, for the
year ending in 1200.

His disastrous misconception not only affects nearly
seventy pages, but somewhat impairs his own argu-
ments based on the supposed dates of the rolls. It is
the more unfortunate, as the scutages under Richard
are a matter of growing constitutional importance,
while those of John, as is well known, were, from their
amounts and the frequency of their incidence, a leading
cause of the Great ^Charter, especially of its financial
provisions. It is human to err; but T think that Mr.
Hall, when he finds himself thus misled, with all his
facilities and his knowledge, may consent to place less
implicit a trust in those of whom he is, if not the apo-
stolical, at least the official successor.

As compared with this, it is a small matter that, on
p. 769, ' Anno Regis Henrici filii Regis Johannis ij° ' is
rendered in the margin ' 1200-1,' instead of ' 1217-8,'
for it is clear that the editor here has mei'ely misread
his text. But one seeks to know why, on p. 774, no

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OP THE EXCHEQUEE 23

date is assigned to the 'Rotulus quondam Eobeiti
Mantel de firma comitatuum Essex et Hertfordsiree,'
for the years in which a Robert Mantel was sheriff of
Essex and Herts can be ascertained, and it is tantalising
to read of ' the personality of this remarkable man — one
of the few great financiers of the century ' (p. ccliii),
and not even to be told in what century he lived.
There was a Robert Mantel who was sheriff of Essex
and Herts from 1170 to 1181, one of the king's typical
officials, who acted as justice itinerant, &c. But Foss
dismisses him in a few lines, and no one seems to have
heard of him as a ' financier ' or a ' remarkable man.' '
All that is certain is that more than half of what is
here printed as his ' rotulus ' (pp. 774-8) ^ is not .his at
all, for he was only responsible for the counties of EsSex
and Herts. By a similar editorial misconception, the
knights' fees on pp. 743-6 are continuously headed
' Feoda de Reyleg, Peverel, et Hagenet,' to the utter
confusion of the student, for, from ' Honore de Worme-
geye ' onwards, they have clearly nothing to do with
either of those honours.

If ' editing ' means anything at all, it means surely
that the reader shall be able to tell from the text what
is the nature and the date of the document he consults.
Now it is scarcely credible, but none the less true, that
Mr. Hall has printed as part of a carta of 1166 (pp.
357-8) a return of 1212 (p. 601). A reference to the
relative entry on the roll of 1168, or even to his own
text (p. 38), would have warned him at once of his

• His son and namesake held_the shrievalty lor two half-years,
17 John and 4 Hen. Ill (31st Eeport of Deputy-keeper, pp. 286, 287).

* Cf. pp. 1, exx.

Digitized by Microsoft®

24 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE

error ; but finding ' a rider ' fastened on to a page in
the Liber Niger, he seems to have jumped to the con-
clusion that it referred to a distinct fief, instead of being
a return for the same one some half a century later.'
That he has no suspicion himself that the two returns
are identical (pp. 357-8, 601), is seen from his making
the manor with which they close to be an Essex manor
(p. 1220) in the one case, and Tuttiugton, Norfolk
- (p. 1189), in the other. Oddly enough it is neither,
being that of Guton in Brandeston. On the opposite
page (p. 600) we have a similar instance in the ' Honor
de Kingtone quod fuit Adse de Port.' The honour thus
conspicuously entered is identified on pp. 546, 600 as
that of ' Kington, co. Dorset,' and on pp. 489, 497 as
of a place of that name in ' co. Wilts.' As a matter of
fact, its caput was Kington, co. Hereford, on the Welsh
border, which was the reason why Adam de Port re-
turned his cartii under ' Hereford in Wallia ' (p. 279),
why the ' Honor de Kinton ' is similarly entered on
p. 497, and why Adam is styled ' de Wallia' on pp. 64,
93, &c.

But to return to Heliun (p. 357). ' No piece of
clerical labour,' Mr, Hall informs us (p. ccxix), ' was
perhaps ever so ill performed ' as the transcription ' into
the Exchequer Eegisters' of the cartce of 1166. It has
proved a standing snare to antiquaries that ' later
additions in the Black Book text ' (p. liv), which were
not part of the cartce at all, ' have been incorporated in
the current text of the Red Book,' while Hearne, when

' This has a bearing on the history of the MS. for on intelligent
Btuclent. If the rider, as Mr. Hall holds, is in a hand contemporary
■with the rest of the Carta, then the Liber Niger text is not earlier
than 1312 — whioh destroys his whole theory of its date.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEK 25

he printed the Liber Niger, did not distinguish, as he
should have done, the original text from these additions.
Dugdale himself, as Mr. Hall observes, was thus misled
by the Eed Book text into inventing an erroneous
pedigree of Mortimer of Richard's Castle ' (p. . Iv). It
was therefore the first business of an editor claiming
to produce ' an improved text ' (p. ccxix) of these
famous documents to distinguish most clearly the
contents of the cartce themselves (1166) from the
other entries which the Red Book scribe has wrongly
mixed up with them. Mr. Hall accordingly warns us
of these additions by foot-notes. But the Heliun
addition which has so misled him is followed, we find,
by others which he has similarly failed to recognise.
In fact, for nearly two pages (pp. 357-9) the text is
not derived from the cartce, though assigned, for the
student's confusion, to '1166.' The ' Baronia Robert!
de Hastinges' is later than 1166,' while the three
entries which follow it are typical later additions.
This, to me, was so obvious that I referred to the
Liber Niger itself, where I found the ' Barony ' and
them entered in another hand. Yet in this ' edition '
of the text there is no mention of the fact ; and
those, therefore, who consult it must be always misled.
Let us take another instance. On p. 288 ^ we find
this remarkable entry : —

Novum appositum de honore de Stbuguile.
Willelmus Marscallus comes Penbroc debet Ixv militea
et dimidium de honore de Struguiile.
. Idem debet ij milites de Castello Godrici.
Idem' debet de Penbroc.

' As, indeed, is also shown by its absence on p. 38.
2 ' 287 ' in Index.

Digitized by Microsoft®

26 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

Now as William Marshal was not an earl and did
not possess this honour till a much later date than
1166, this entry, unique in form, deserves careful
study. I referred, therefore, to the Black Book, and
there discovered, firstly, that it is in the same writing
as the cartes, and secondly that the heading (' Novum '
&c.) is not found there. Mr. Hall does not mention
this important fact, although he has, professedly,
collated the two texts. I need scarcely explain to the
scholar the direct bearing on the study of both texts of
the two facts which I thus discovered by referring to
the MS. for myself. But can one place any trust in
such ' editing ' as this ?

The fact is that the large space Mr. Hall devotes to
controversy, to trying to extenuate or explain away
the demonstrated errors of Swereford, has compelled him
to discuss the character of his MSS. all too briefly.
The student surely is less anxious for the editor's
opinion on historical points, which he can examine for
himself, than for a careful description of the original
MSS., which he cannot easily consult.

But even where we are vouchsafed critical remarks
on the MSS , these produce, when tested, a most dis-
quieting eflFect. Let us take, for 'instance, this passage
from his brief critical remarks on the work of the Red
Book scribe (pp. liii-liv).

He even writes Robertus for Folbertus (p. 347. This
looks as though the exemplar had ' Fobertus '). The ' D ' of
the Black Book is remarkably like an ' A,' The Red Book
scribe writes ' Avus ' for ' D[orai]nus ' regardless of the sense
(p. 339). The former does not dot his ' i's ' and makes his
' r ' like an ' i,' the latter, who always changes ' i ' into ' y,'
writes Panmaytin for Banmartin,^

THE EBD BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE 27

On referring to the two pages cited from the text,
we first discover that the scribe has written, not
' Robertus,' but ' Rolbertus ' (p. 347) — which destroys
the inference as to the ' exemplar j' and in the second
place that he has not written ' Avus ' for ' Dominus '
(which would have been right), but, on the contrary,
',Dominus ' for ' Avus,' which, of course, is destructive
of Mr. Hall's argument. Lastly, we find that, though
'Danmartin' occurs in its various forms over forty
times,^ in only one case (p. 409) is the ' r ' altered to 'y,'
and even there, Mr. Hall tells us, only ' partly ' so !

May one not relieve the dryness of this technical
inquiry by the quaint thought that pupils are learning
how to edit MSS. at the feet of this ' professeur ' of
palaeography and diplomatic ?

Let us take a single passage as an instance of what
Mr. Hall can make of his text. Among his * proofs '
that the Black Book MS. ' was compiled about the
seventh year of the reign' of John (May 1205-May
1206) we find this ' remarkable evidence ' : —

Jn the charter of William son of Richard, an entry
occurs, as a later addition, to the effect that William
Briwerre holds Chesterfield by the service of one knight
(p.. 344). The grant of Chesterfield was made in the sixth
year of John, and therefore it follows that the MS.
in which this addition was made .was written in or before
that year.

Now the grant of Chesterfield was made 27 Septem-
ber 1204, so that, if the argument has any meaning,
the MS. must have been written before that date,
which, so far from proving, disproves Mr. Hall's con-

' There are forty-six references under it in the Index, but 'Daniel
plncerna ' seems to have slipped in among them by mistake.

Digitized by Microsoft®

28 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

elusion. But this is not all. The ' charter ' is not that
of William son of Richard, but of ' Ralf son of William '
(and, indeed, not even his, for the heading in the MS.
is wrong) ; and William Briwerre held by the service,
not ' of one knight,' but ' of half a knight ' (p. 344).
Which proves that the editor, as we shall find, cannot
even quote correctly -his own printed text. But the
climax is to come. William did, under this grant, hold
Chesterfield &c. &c. by the service of one knight, as
the Charter Roll proves. Therefore the Red Book text
is wrong in reading ' Willelmus Bruerre dimidium j
militis,' &c. Had Mr. Hall collated the Black Book
properly, he would have found that for his ' dimidium,'
it has only d', an abbreviation which the despised
Hearne shrewdly suggested should be read ' d[ebet] i
militem,' which gives us at once accuracy and sense.
So too in the case of the reading ' Gilbertus filius Rein-
fridi de j milite ' in the Red Book and Mr. Hall's text
(p. 444), which is nonsense, the same abbreviation, ac-
cording to Hearne, is found in the Black Book,^ though
unnoticed by Mr. Hall, and the right reading clearly is
' d[ebet] j militem.'

It is not possible, of course, without free access to
the Liber Rubeus and the Liber Niger to collate these
MSS. for oneself and test Mr. Hall's readings ; but the
freedom he allowed himself in extension is well illus-
trated by his now notorious three names ' Torp, Widone,
Andegane,' for ' Torp Widon[is] Andegav[ensis].' *
On p. 242 we learn that while the Red Book reads 'hsec,'
the Black Book reads ' hsec' The point of this variant

' In which I have verified his reading. (I cannot reproduce the
ftbbreviation in ordinary type.)
' See Oenealogiat, July 1897.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 29

is not obvious, and, as the word looks questionable, one
refers to the Black Book, and there finds the abbrevia-
• tion h', which may stand for hio, hcec, hoc, and a dozen
other things.^ Again on p. 312 we find Hugh de
Bolbec, bearer of a well-known name — derived from
Bolbec in the Havre country, given as ' Hugo Bolebache,'
as if the name were a sohriquet. We are told in a note
that the L. N. reads ' Bolebeche,' but what it reads is
' de Bolebeche.' The climax, however, is reached in the
statement that 'both MSS. are utterly at fault with
" Oinus Polcheard" ' (p. ccxcix), who, we learn, can 'be
easily identified with "Oinus Polcehart" or "Oinus
serviens,' of the Pipe Boll of 1130.' For, on turning
to the text (p. 810) we discover that the Black Book
reads, according to Mr. Hall himself, ' Oinus Polechart,'
so that no question can arise about ' Oinus.' And, when
' we further turn to the actual MS. of the Black Book,
we read in its exquisitely clear writing, not ' Polechart,'
but ' Polchehart.' Thus Mr. Hall, even here, where he
makes a special point of the text, cannot read his MS.
aright.

Eeally, one begins to ask the question whether this
lecturer on palaeography can even read the MS. before
him.^ On p. cciv, for instance, we find, this passage : —

With respect to these [13 fees], Swereford significantly
observes, in another place (fo. I18d) 'Sed illos xiii [milites]
attomavit [comes] ad servitium militare qui omnes non
fuerunt milites.'

This sounded so suspicious that I turned to the passage

• Martin's Secord Interpreter.

' We find, in another place, Mr. Hall reading 'arma,' where his
MS. has ' Barone.'

Digitized by Microsoft®

30 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

cited, in the official transcript, where I found it to

run : —

Sed illos xiii attornavit comes ' ad sorvicium militare
q' an' non fuerunt milites.^

Now an' is a recognised abbreviation for ante,^ which
makes sense : it cannot stand for omnes, which, further,
makes nonsense. Mr. Hall, consequently, reads omnes.
Nor is this all. Swereford's ' significant ' observa-
tion, as usual, proves to be merely part of his analysis
of the Arundel carta, in which these fees are thus
spoken of: —

Et Rex^Henricus dedit de suo dominie quod Comes
attornavit ad servitium militare. . . .

Et sunt xiii qui per manura Comitis de dominie suo
positi sunt ad servitium militare (pp. 201, 202).

Swereford, therefore, tells us nothing : he merely para-
phrased the carta before him.

As has been well observed by the Eoyal Historical
Society : —

It is useless to spend hundreds and thousands of pounds
(as we have done, and in some cases are still doing) on the
publication of historical texts, the editors of which possess
the most imperfect knowledge of palaeography. The result
is seen in an ignorance of the best MSS., in wrong
extensions of names and places, and in many topographical
and philological absurdities. Now the best French scholars
have strenuously insisted . . . that . . . the editor must
interpret the cipher of the scribe by means of the most
approved methods of historical, genealogical, topographical,
and philological learning. The attention of the Fellows of
the Boyal Historical Society is called to this subject,

' There is no occasion to supply this word.

' The folio of the Bed Book (see Transcript) is not 118d, but
218d, and the reading an' is perfectly dear in the MS.

' See Martin's Record Interpreter. The official transcript gives
the abbreviation in record form.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE 31

because it is one which will inevitably attract much notice
during the next few years.'

This prophecy has proved perfectly true.

Another test of Mr. Hall's capacity to edit a
mediasval MS. is afforded by that important document
the ' Constitutio domus regis,' of which the text is found
both in the Red Book and the Black Book. No one can
collate these texts, as Mr. Hall has done, without see-
ing clearly that the Black Book has the best text.
Bearing in mind this superiority, we may approach
the editor's hypothesis on page ccc : —

There is another doubtful reading of the text which has
hitherto escaped attention. The Red Book, under the
head of the Marshal's office, mentions the Hostiarii militis
JEpiscopi.^ The Black Book has the reading milites ipsi ;
but it seems more probable that the officers referred to are
Bishop Roger's deputies (the technical meaning of milites),
namely his nephew Nigel and Osbert Pont de I'Arche, who,
as we know from the pipe rolls, were custodes of the
Norman Treasury ; and this explanation accords well with
the pointed allusion to the rare attendance of the Treasurer
himself in the Norman household (p. ccc).

It is desirable to print the texts side by side : —

Black Book. Red Book.'

Hostiarii milites ipsi in Hostiarii milites ep'i in

domo comedent, et unicuique Domooomraedent, unicuique

hominum suorum iij ob. in hominum suorum iij ob. in

die et viij frustra cande- die et viij frustra cande-

lorum. Gilebertus Bonus larum. Gilbertus Bonus

Homo et Banulfus in domo Homo et Radulfus in Domo

comedent, et iij oh. horn- commedent sine alia libera-

inibus suis. Alii HosOa/rii, tione (p. 812).
Twn milites, in domo com,edent
sine alia liberatione (Hearne,
p. 355).

■ ' The progress of historical research ' (Transactions, ix, 274).
' But according to Mr. Hall's text (p. 812) the Bed Book reads,
'Hostiarii, militw epiw^'^d by MicrosofM^- Hall's text.

32 THE RED BOOK OE THE EXGHEQUEE

Apart from the superiority of the Black Book text
throughout, it is obvious that in this passage the Red
Book has a grave oinission.' And yet Mr. Hall de-
liberately selects the reading in the worse text. Now
observe what his theory is : he holds that ' the
treasurer ' was Bishop Roger, and that the ' milites
ep[iscop]i ' were the deputy treasurers. But the clause
has nothing to do with treasurers ; it deals with the
ushers {Hostiarii). Indeed, Mr. Hall himself, in his
analysis (p. ccxcii), renders the word ' Ushers [of the
Treasury].' Ushers are not Treasurers, and never were.
We need not, therefore, waste time by explaining that
Mr. 'Hall's reading would make nonsense of the Black
Book text, or by proving the incorrectness of the state-
ment that ' deputies ' is ' the technical meaning of
milites.' ^ The point one has to insist upon is the
utterly uncalled-for character of the wild suggestion
heralded by the words : ' it seems more probable.'

Such instances as this may render us disposed to
extend the time limit in this extract from an article
assigned to Mr. Hall himself : — ^

We must have more texts and better texts to work
from. We must resolutely discard the useless editions of
our national Records prepared by the well-meaning official
antiquaries of the first half of the present century,*

One of the closest and most important pairallels in

the Bialoyus and the Coiistiiutio is found in the passage

relating to the Marshal and the tallies : —

' Compare p. 4 above.

' We are referred, for this assertion, to ' Dialogus, i, 8.' But the
chamberlain's ' milites ' there mentioned were so called, not because
the; were his deputies, but because they were knights, bound to have
horses and arms, and paid ■ ratione militin.'
Bee English Historical lieview, xiii ,149.
Quarterly Revievi, no. 867, p. 188.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE KED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUBR 33

CONSTITUTIO. DiALOGUS.

Magister Marescallus Marescalli cura est taleas

. . . debet habere dicas de debitorum quas vicecomes

donis et liberationibus que reddiderit, quae tamen annot-

f uerint de Thesauro Regis et antur in rotulo, mittere seor-

de sua Camera ; et debet sum in forulo suo.
habere dicas contra omnes
officiales Regis, &o.

The important point is that the Marshal is here
connected with the keeping of the tallies (which were
sometimes called' dicse').^ Mr. Hall, accordingly, rightly
points out, as to the 'Tallator' mentioned in. the
Gonstitutio, that ' the presence of this officer is explained
by the reference to the dicce used by the Marshal.'
But no sooner has he made this just remark than
he suddenly proceeds : —

For other reasons, however, it would be more convenient
to suppose that dicas- standa ior decimas, the allusion being
to the official fees which were certainly taken at a later
date at the Receipt (p. 973).

How characteristically hopeless ! No clue is given
us as to the ' other reasons ' which require this violence
to the text ; and all that we can find on p. 973, is that
the Chamberlains, not the Marshal, were charged with
exacting, riot ' decimas ' (!), but ' graves fines et redemp-
tiones,' and did so ' propria auctoritate,' not in right of
their office, and not for the matters spoken of in the
Gonstitufio. Could any emendation of the text be more
wantonly wrong-headed ?

' It is particularly interesting to find, towards the oloBe of the
fourteenth century, direct evidence that, at that date, it was the func-
tion of the Marshal's deputy at the Exchequer that he ' auera la
garde des ffoilles et tallies qui sont alloues en mesme la place ' (Nero
D. VI, fo. 88).

Digitized by Microsoft® 1)

34 THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEftUEE

Perhaps, however, the climax of error is attained in
Mr, Hall's treatment of Swereford's word 'praemissa.'
On p. 689, Swereford argues, from an entry on the rolls,
that certain ' praemissa scutagia ' must be ' de exercitn
Tholosse.' From his use of ' pr^missa ' on pp. 696 and
697 ^ we learn that he means thereby some preceding
entry, precisely as, on p. 580, ' summa xiii prasmissorum '
means ' of the 13 preceding [entries].' Now on p. 689,
we have three preceding entries of scutage, and it is to
these that Swereford's note obviously and clearly ap-
plies.^ Mr. Hall, however, quotes the words ' praemissa
scutagia ' (p. 689) as ' promissa scutagia ' (p. clxxii),
a ad proceeds on this misquotation of his own printed
text to announce a great discovery : —

At last then we can clearly distinguish between the two
separate assessments for a typical campaign between the
middle of the twelfth and the middle of the thirteenth
centuries. On the one hand we have the promissa or other
compositions in lieu of personal servicej (fee. &c. (p. cxcLi).

No one, surely, can pretend that criticism is not
called for when such theories as this are advanced in
oflBcial works, not as mere speculations, but as historical
fact. The ridiculous word on which it is based occurs,
I believe, no fewer than ten times in Mr. Hall's preface.
To those who are competent to grasp all that such a
blunder means it may seem that I have treated too
seriously this official production : the only doubt that
remains in one's mind is whether to describe such
editing as this as a farce or a burlesque.

' In the unpublished portion of this seotion of the Bed Book he
again uses it in this sense under 24 Hen. II: — 'Idem quod in
p[i'iB]mi8sis,'

" The reader should be warned against the misleading reference
appended to ' Tholosn ' at foot of p. 689. It should be deleted.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EEC BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUEE 35

What can be the explanation of these singular per-
versions ? It must, I fear, be sought in a kind oi
intellectual flaw, some radical defect in that faculty of
exact perception, which is absolutely essential to the
editor of a corrupt and derived manuscript. Mr. Hall
is apt to see, not the words before him, but something
more or less different, something affected, even distorted,
by an intervening medium. Take the case of Quarr
Abbey v. Adam de Stratton, tersely but accurately
described in a KeCord OflBce calendar as ' concern-
ing the rupture of a writing.' ' Mr. Hall, who has
dealt specially with the matter, first writes thus
(p. cccxvii) : —

The most curious part of the story is that Adam yras
actually convicted and imprisoned on the prosecution of
this very abbey for forgery of their charters {Abbreviatio
Placitoruni, p. 196 b).

To me, the most curious part of the story is that when
we turn to the passage cited, we find there not a word
about the forgery of charters. Nay, so utterly reckless
is the editor, that, a few pages further on (p. cccxxii),
he gives us quite a different version of this same
trial : —

The criminal proceedings against him on the prosecution
of the abbot ,of Quarr took place in Easter term of this
same year (7 Edward I), and the record informs us that
he was convicted by a jury of having mutilated the seal of
a charter granted by the Countess of Albemarle to the
abbey in order to support the case of his patroness (Coram
Eege Roll, Pasch., 7 Edw. I, rot. 12).

If we refer to the roll cited, even this is not correct,
for no seal is mentioned in it : what was torn was the
> Calendar of Patent Bolls, 1461-1467 (p. 5S7).

Digitized by Microsoft® " 2

36 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUEB

charter itself. It is doubtful, however, if the editor can
even have looked at the roll, for Adam was not convicted
' in Easter term,' but as early as January 2 (1279).'

In such a case as that on p. 661, where the text
makes nonsense — ' sed episcopus dicit non habet nisi 1
milites ' — we have actually only to turn to a note on
p. 13 to find, from Mr. Hall's own words, that he has
himself made it nonsense by omitting the word ' ut ' in
the manuscript before him.

Again, on p. 670, Swereford has a most unintelligible
note (marginal, though Mr. Hall omits to mention it)
charging with error the roll of 1156, ' quia hoc scribi-
tur Eiton pro Houtton.' For proof, he refers us to the
roll of 1157, where he reads ' Wendovre et Eyton ' (p.
683). Mr. Hall quotes in his preface (p. ccxv) the
latter passage from the text, but gives it as ' Wendovra
et Heitun ' (sio). Swereford's point is incomprehen-
sible, but it turns, at least, on a confusion between
' Eiton ' and ' Houtton,' which makes Mr. Hall's in-
accurate quotation peculiarly unfortunate. My re-
maining Ulnstration is taken from the preceding page
of the preface. Mr. Hall having claimed for the anno-
tations, in this portion of the work, ' a certain interest
and value from the authority of Swereford's oflBcial
position at the Exchequer,' invites our attention to ' the
long note on the practice of putting the Danegeld in
charge when the writer was at the Exchequer, under
' William of Ely, in the reign of John.' Danegeld under
John ? The historical student, surely, will rub his eyes.
For, as, in another place, Mr. Hall himself observes,
' the Danegeld ceased to be put in charge after the year
' See also Oanealogical Magazine, vol. i. p. 1 et seq.
Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 37

1163' (p. cclii). Eeference to the note itself (p. 669)
proves that Mr. Hall has simply misread it. Are we not
compelled to infer that an editor who cannot quote cor-
rectly even his own text must, from some mental pecu-
liarity, be almost incapable of accuracy ? ' And if he
can thus misquote his text, we cannot wonder that he
should misapprehend the criticisms to which it is
exposed.

How, indeed, can Mr. Hall understand the argu-
ments of others, when, as I shall now show, he cannot
understand his-own ? Of this we have an instance in his
' startling ' theory, as he terms it himself (p. Ivi), of a
lost ' exemplar,' intermediate between the text of the
cartoe in the Black Book and that in the Red Book. To
avoid the possibility of misrepresenting that theory,
I will quote his own words : —

The theory in question may be stated briefly as follows :
that the text of the ^Barons' charters in the Red Book was
transcribed, not from the Black Book text, but from another
MS. by the same hand, written at a later date and embody-
ing the later additions posted in the original (p. Ivi).

Whether right or wrong, this is a novel theory, which
has to be discussed on its merits. It is again stated
thus, a little further on (p. Iviii) : —

If, therefore, we could suppose . . . that another MS.
of the Barons' charters was written at the close of the
reign of John ... we might readily believe that this MS,,
and not the existing Black Book, was the exemplar used by
the scribe of the Bed Book about the year 1230.

A footnote, appended to this paragraph, refers to a

' There is reason to believe, as I show below, that Mr. Hall has
derived a ' 200 ' (? duceutos) from the ' ducendi ' of his own text 1
Digitized by Microsoft®

38 THE BED BOOK OF THE BXCHEaUEB

different view of my own (which need not detain us)
and adds : —

It will be observed, however, that this conclusion affects
only the text of these Barons' charters, and not the view of
the Red Book at large, as a transcript from an earlier
Exchequer Register, which has been advanced here (p. lix).

But it will be seen that Mr. Hall, here, has advanced
no such view : his argument, as set forth by himself,
affects only, and is merely based on, the text of the
' Barons' charters.'

We find the same confusion of thought on p. clvi,
where he admits that the charter he is trying to impugn
as an anachronism ' is referred to in a bull of Pope Lucius
II dated in 1144 and in another bull,' but suggests
that these bulls might be ' confirmations of forgeries.'
But if the impugned document was already in exist-
ence in 1144, whether genuine or not, the fact is suf-
ficient to disprove his argument that its language is
of much later date.

Again, on the very important question of the ' later
additions ' to the Black Book text of the cartoB 1166, his
argument is hopelessly confused, as I have elsewhere
shown in detail.' Under the heading : — ' Date of the
Black Book proved by the later additions,' he claims to
have ' proofs that it was compiled about the seventh
year of the reign ' of John, and produces ' the following
remarkable evidence ' : —

The grant of Chesterfield was made in the sixth year of
John, and therefore it follows that the MS. in which this
addition was made, was written in or before that year
(pp. Ivi-lvii).

' Oenealogist, July 1897.
Digitized by Microsoft®

THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 39

A.S this grant was made September 27, 1204, the
MS. must, according to Mr. Hall, have been written
before that date. And yet he proceeds to ' advance to
the following definite conclusion, that in or about the
year 1206 Swereford . . . compiled the existing Black
Book of the Exchequer ' (p. Ixii) !

The fact is that these ' later additions ' take us back
not only to Richard's days, as in the case of the last
two on p. 359, but much earlier still. For under
Huntingdonshire (p. 372) we have four ' later addi-
tions,' and under Yorkshire (pp. 434-6) a whole string
of them, which are taken straight from the Pipe Roll of
1168.' This is a reductio ad ahsurdum of Mr. Hall's ar-
gument, for it would prove ' that the MS. in which this
addition was made, was written in or before that year.'
Of course, the simple explanation is that the argument
itself is all wrong, and misconceives entirely the nature
of these ' later additions.' ^

The ' startling ' theory (p. Ivi) of a now lost ' inter-
mediate exemplar ' (p. Iviii) between the Black Book and
the Red Book, from which the latter, as we have it, was
compiled, is so novel and so important that it ought, at
least, to be formulated with the utmost care and clear-
ness. On p. Ixii we find the ' definite conclusion ' that
Swereford ' in or about ' 1212 ' commenced a new work
on a greater scale, which was the ciistumal known to
Mathew Paris, and the probable exemplar of the Red
Book of the Exchequer.' But on p. xxix it is argued

' There is no sign on Mr. Hall's part that he has grasped this
fact.

" It is in connection with these additions that the fact noted by
myself above (p. 26) of the Striguil entry being made, in the original
. hand assumes unique importance.

Digitized by Microsoft®

40 THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

that Eichard Fitz Nigel (1 171-1 192) and Hoveden (from

1192) drew their documentB from a source which was

probably the custumal referred to by ' Mathew Paris ' ;

and on p. xxx we read : —

It is possible therefore that the Court historians of the
latter part of the twelfth century were indebted to this lost
work or to a kindred Register for other documents than
those which are still preserved in the Red and Black Books
of the Exchequer.

Now how could historians ' of the latter part of the
twelfth century ' avail themselves, in any case, of a
Register which ex hypothesi was not even begun till
about 1212 ?

It is obvious, therefore, that, from looseness or con-
fusion of thought the editor cannot formulate or does
not clearly grasp even his own argument on points of
avowed importance.

Mr. Hall may pose as an authority on ' diplomatic '
and palaeography, but the student must really beware
of him when he writes on mediaeval MSS. For in-
stance, he holds that, in the Red Book, the text of the
' Dialogus ' was written ' before 1227, for a report of the
proceedings of the Council in that year is endorsed upon
it in another, but a contemporary hand ' (p. Ixi). Good.
But on turning to the Hargrave MS., I found this note
to be, there also, an addition in another hand, appended
in precisely the same manner, at the tail of the ' Dia-
logus.' Therefore, by Mr. Hall's argument, the Hargrave
text also must have been written ' before 1227 ' ; and yet
we find him assigning that text to ' the middle of the
thirteenth century.''

' Dr. Lieberir am, who holds that the Hargrave MS. was ' written
about 1260,' seems to imply that it was simply ' copied ' from the

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 41

The above note, I may add, is of very great import-
ance for the history and relation of the MSS., as in
both cases it closes with the words ' Alexandre
[i.e. Swereford] . . . qui interfuit et hoc scripsit ; cujus
liber iste fuit ' (p. 1010).

A brief inspection of the Eed Book itself and of the
Hargrave MS. in the British Museum, which it so
curiously resembles, can be no substitute for that close
acquaintance which an editor acquires by living, as it
were, for years with his MSS. One may venture, how-
ever, to observe that the two features on which the
problem of their relation, in my opinion, will be found
to hinge are the personal note described above and the
extracts from the Pipe- Rolls with annotations which
purport to be made by Swereford. Moreover I cannot
find any notice taken by Mr. Hall of the remarkable
allusion on p. 659 (fo. 186) to the ' Dialogus ' ' as ' libro
superiori,' which bears directly on his conclusion that
the main contents of the volume were not at first bound
together, but were separate ' libelli ' (pp. Ixi, Ixii). Of
the Pipe Roll extracts I will only say that, in my opinion,
they should be carefully collated with the text in the
Hargrave MS., and that the results of such collation
would, I think, be instructive. When we turn to the
actual MSS., we are surprised to find that, while in the
Red Book these abstracts (1-14 Hen. II, 19-24 Hen. II,
1-3 Ric. I) are found with intervals between them, in

Liber Rubeus [Transactions of the Boyal Historical Society, VIII, 35).
Mr. Hall, however, thinks it ' a copy made, not from the Eed Book
itself, but probably from the same exemplar' (p. li).. I cannot find
that he produces any reason for this view. Indeed, he observes that ' a
careful examination failed to disclose any readings or variations of
interest, but rather an aggravation- of the worst errors of the Exche-
quer MS.' ' Folios 31 d-46 d..

Digitized by Microsoft®

42 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXOHECIUER

the Hargrave MS. they are closely continuous. The
latter fact is virtually fatal, as every expert will per-
ceive, to Mr. Hail's conclusion that in ' the ultimate
Exemplar,' from which he holds both MSS. to have
been transcribed, this abstract ' was not an unfinished
work ' (p. cclxiv). Indeed, the fact is pregnant with
suggestion. It is further emphasised by Mr. Hall's
conclusion : —

It is quite clear that the scribe ' made use of the Abstract
of Sheriflfs' farms or rather of the unmutilated copy which
must have existed in the ultimate exemplar of the Ex-
chequer text for the purpose of his compilation (p. cclxiv).

A very careful scrutiny of the text will lead to the con-
clusion that the scribe had before him only the abstract
for the rolls of 1-14, 19-24 Hen. II, and not, as
alleged, a complete one in some other Exemplar. There
is a test passage on p. 796 : —

In Tindale xZ. ut iiij° Regis Henrici, quae dantnr E«gi
ScociiE in xix".

The King of Scotland's 101. is found on the roll of the
17th year,^ which makes it certain that the scribe had
not an abstract for that year before him, and that his
abstracts only recommenced in the 19th year, precisely
as they do in the Red Book. The point, no doubt, is
somewhat technical ; but then Professor Tout has told
us that ' the more technical Mr. Hall is the more satis-
factory does his method seem.' ^ Such is professorial
criticism.

' Of the Hargrave MS. document, pp. 779 797.

' ' Et Begi Scottie x li. in Tindal[e] ' p. 75.

• English Historical 'BevieWt'Xlll, p. 148. It is interesting to
find that the scribe reads ' Andreis Botetorte * on p. 792, which is
also the reading on p. ^88, ivhere a passage now lost on the Pipe

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEK 43

Before leaving this subject of the MS. itself, some-
thing must be said of the second section (pp. x-xix) of
Mr. Hall's preface, because it is wholly erroneous from
the beginning to the end. It deals with ' a question of
the gravest importance in connection with its [the Red
Book's] integrity,' namely the alleged loss of certain
' transcripts of documents ' which it formerly contained.
The first of these transcripts, we are told, is that of an
Exchequer Record of 11 Edward III, the second is that
o? ' formulcB of medisBval oaths omitted,' the third is 'the
order of Richard I's coronation omitted.' We will deal
with them in order, the first of them in some detail.

In his introduction to the Year Book of 14 Ed. Ill
(1 888) Mr. L. 0. Pike enunciated the startling pro-
position that ' the existing Red Book of the Exchequer
is not the original Liber Buheus ' (p. xz). He claimed a
certain record as ' a proof that the Li,ber Ruheus of the
Exchequer, as known to Sir Edward Coke, and as known
at the present day, is not the Liher Ruheus which was
so called in the reign of Edward III, though it may
possibly include portions of that book.'

My friend, the late Mr. Walford Selby, who was
then about to edit the Liber for the Master of the
Rolls, resented deeply this hasty conclusion that it watf
not the genuine original, and asked my opinion on the
subject. The result was a letter from him which ap-
peared in the Athenaeum of November 10, 1888, in
which he vigorously asserted the identity of the existing
Red Book with that of Edward Ill's days, and urged

Eoll (3 Hen. II) is supplied by Swereford. For there can be no
question that ' Andrese ' is a blunder for ' Amprido,' although Mr.
Hall imagines the two men to be distinct ((. 1117).

Digitized by Microsoft®

44 THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

that (as had been already suggested in print by myself)
Mr. Pike had misunderstood the passage on which he
relied.

There the matter dropped for the time, nor have I
seen any subsequent attempt to dispute the identity of
the existing Red Book.

Mr. Hall now comes forward with a new and inde-
pendent theory. I must first explain — for no one
would discover the fact from his preface — that he tacitly
rejects as absolutely as did Mr. Selby himself Mr. Pike's
discovery, and assumes throughout the identity of the
existing Red Book. But he tells ns that ' a question
of the gravest importance in connection with its
integrity ' (sic) is raised by the disputed record. What
then is this record ? It is printed in exfenso by Mr.
Pike in his preface (pp. xxi-xxv), and proves to be an
enrolment, on the Memoranda Roll of 11 Edward II f,
of a certificate from the Barons of the Exchequer in
reply to a writ of the King (mentioning a previous
writ), which writ they recite in full. Q'he question
turns on these words, which are found at the foot of the
enrolment : —

Et memorandum quod breve prescriptum et aliud breve
de quo fit mentio superius sunt inter Communia de hoc anno
xj° ; et cetera contenta in dicta certificatione annotantur
mode specialiori in Rubeo libro de Scaccario et in Recordis
et procesBubus babitis coram Baronibus ad placita ibidem.

According to Mr. Pike, these words prove that ' a con-
temporaneous entry was made in the Liber Ituheus of the
period ' ; and yet the entry in the existing Red Book
was, admittedly, made in the time of Henry VI. He
concluded therefore^ijas we have seen, that the existing

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 45

Red Book was not ' the Liber Ruleus of the period.'
Mr. Hall has a different explanation : according to
him, the certificate was duly * entered contempor-
aneously in the Red Book ' known to us, but dis-
appeared subsequently, and ' is only represented in the
existing volume by a copy entered out of place in the
reign of Henry VI.'

The whole difficulty, it will be observed, is caused
by Mr. Pike's assumption, in which he is followed by
Mr. Hall, that the Barons' certificate was actually
copied into the Red Book in 11 Edward III, while the
existing transcript found there is a century later in
date. Mr. Selby and I agreed that this assumption
was merely an erroneous deduction from the words
quoted above.

Mr. Hall, however, referring to the letter which
appeared in the Athenaeum writes : —

It must be regarded as a fatal objection to a theory
which has been strongly advanced in defence of the integrity
of the MS. that the expression ' annotatur ' is one of those
most frequently used to denote an official inrolment,' &c.

Now, in the first place, Mr. Selby was defending
not the ' integrity,' but, as we have seen, the identity
of the lAher JRuheus, the only point that had been then
raised, and one that was wholly different. Secondly, I
must reluctantly observe, Mr. Hall here betrays his
strange confusion of thought.' His so-called objection
could only be ' fatal ' if ' annotatur ' always and ex-
clusively denotes official enrolment. Now we have in
this very volume conclusive proof to the contrary. A

' Compare p. 35 abqye..
Digitized by Microsoft®

46 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

note by Mr. Hall himself on p. 186 informs us that his
title to the Ga/rtcB

is taken from a heading on fo. 83 of the manuscript in a
hand of Edward II. The full heading is as follows : —
' Certificationes factse de feodis militum tempore Regis
Henrici Secundi per prelatos et barones pretextu mandati
Regis ejusdem cmnotati alibi in hoc libra, folio videhcet
xlvii" precedenti.'

As the terms of this ' mandate ' have not been
preserved we eagerly turn to folio 47 for its ' enrol-
ment.' But what we find there is neither enrolment
nor writ, but merely Swereford's narrative, in which he
speaks of Henry II 'publico prsecipiens edicto quod
quilibet prelatus et baro quot milites de eo tenerent in
capite publicis suis instrumentis significarent ' (p. 5).
So far from being an enrolment of the writ, this is no-
thing but a conjecture of Swereford as to what the
tenor of the writ must have been, a conjecture, more-
over, which is probably inaccurate.'

This evidence, it will be seen, is absolutely conclu-
sive as to the loose use of the word ' annotatur.'

We have then to see if the rest of the evidence is
consistent with Mr. Hall's interpretation. If we read
the Latin with care, we see, in the first place, that
the word ' annotantur ' refers only to ' caetera contenta,'
namely the lesser half of the document : and yet Mr.
Hall and Mr. Pike would make it apply to the whole.
Secondly, as Mr. Selby pointed out, the words ' modo
specialiori ' are absolutely without meaning if applied
to a simple transcript. Thirdly, the most important
point of all, though Mr. Selby failed to bring it out,

' See Feudal England, p. 237.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUEE 4T

,is that the Latin, if it speaks of entry, does not speak,
as Mr. Hall represents, of entry or enrolment in the
Red Book alone, but of entry there ' et in recordis et
processubus habitis coram Baronibus ad placita ibidem.'
This so obviously makes nonsense if we render ' anno-
tantur ' as he does, that he has to ignore the words !
Such a method of dealing- with one's evidence is, I
confess, to me at least, no less disquieting than
novel.

It can fortunately be shown that Mr. Selby's inter-
pretation requires no such suppression of the evidence,
but harmonises perfectly with the circumstances of the
case. In their very remarkable and important state-
ment, the Barons sturdily assert an ancient privilege of
the Exchequer, as one of those which had been recog-
nised from the Conquest, and of which the existence
could be proved from the reign of Henry III. But they
do so, as Mr. Pike observes, with ' a remarkable absence
of detail and of all precise references.' Mr. Selby ac-
cordingly interpreted the above Latin note as meaning
that the Barons' general assertions were set forth ' in a
more detailed and special manner (modo speciaUori)'
in 'the Red Book and other Exchequer Records.'
And, indeed, Mr. Pike himself admits that the privi-
lege claimed ' can without doubt be traced back to the
reign of Henry III in records which are still extant
and which have been cited in Madox ' ; while ' the great
precedent book of the Exchequer,' as Mr. Hall terms
the Liber Buheus, contains not only the famous
' Dialogus ' (of which, however, Mr. Pike does not think
so highly as he does), with its assertions of Exchequer
privilege, but those ' remarkable writs of Protection,'
Digitized by Microsoft®

48 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUER

as Mr. Hall describes them, ' that were intended to
illustrate ' the doctrine.

As for Mr. Hall's demonstration that ' the second
writ referred to ... is not the " csetera contenta," as
has also been suggested,' Mr. Selby, at any rate, never
made so obviously erroneous a suggestion. Nor can I
imagine who did so.

I trust I have not intervened without a cause in a
kind of triangular duel between officers of the Public
Record Office. The importance of the point is fully
admitted,, and the fact that Mr. Selby is, unhappily,
no longer alive to defend his view, has led me to show
that it explains everything, and that the other inter-
pretation proposed breaks down, when examined, com-
pletely.

The second case of alleged loss is that of ' the fm--
mulce of mediaeval oaths.' This is easily disposed of
In addition to what was officially termed the ' Liber
Rubeus de Scaccario,' there were, as Mr. Hall observes,
many other ' Red Books ' : —

There was even in the fourteenth century at least one
other Red Book in official custody, for we find in a con-
temporary record (34 Edw. Ill) the note that a recent
eclipse of the sun has been duly entered in ' Rubeo Libro
vocato Chronicles ' (p. v).

Mr. Hall has also found, in a Wardrobe Account, a
book officially (he tells us) known as ' Liber Rubeus
qui vocatur textus super quern Magnates Anglise sole-
bant jurare ' (p. xiii).' Is there one scrap of evidence
that the book thus officially deaciibed was the Red

' I have examined the MSS. cited by Mr. Hall, but can only find
this book once described as ' Bubeus.'

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 40

Book of the Exchequer ? Absolutely none. The
' Liber Eubeus de Scaccario ' was certainly not a texiu",
nor is there the slightest reason to suppose that any
person, at any time, swore upon it any oath. And con-
versely, there is no evidence that the textus on which the
Magnates swore contained the formulae of any oaths.
Yet, upon a strange confusion of thought Mr. Hall
tries to base the identity of these volumes (pp. xii-
xviii), and expends infinite labour on this baseless
hypothesis.

This is an excellent instance of that misdirected toil'
which, has been so freely praised by reviewers, because
they are unaware that it is not only wasted, but mis-
leading.^

The last ' instance of palpable omission ' is that of
' the order of Richard I's coronation.' This I shall
dispose of in another place. Mr. Hall admits that
another conclusion might be drawn from the evidence
(p. xix), but assumes, nevertheless, that the Red Book
of the Exchequer did contain an ' order,' now lost, of
Richard's coronation.^ Indeed, he argues elsewhere
from ' the remarkable instances of the loss of documents
which, are known to have been formerly entered ' in the
Liber Bubeus (pp. cccii).' The whole of the section
devoted to that imaginary loss is the fruit of worse than
useless, because misleading, toil.

I have spoken abo^e (p. 47) of the writs of Protec-
tion for oflScers of the Jbixchequer entered in the Liber

Bubeus. They afford instances of Mr. Hall's inaccuracy,
>

• See below, p. 58.

^ ' The lost entry of the Coronation eeremony of 1189 ' (p. ooov).

* The argument is intended to show that a reference on p. 4 need
pot be to the Dialogus, as scholars have supposed. But it clearly is.

Digitized by Microsoft® E

60 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

the more striking as he happens to devote particular
attention to the subject. Describing these ' remarkable
writs' as ' eight in number ' (p. cccvi), he lays stress
upon the ' fact that no inrolment of any one of the eight
can be found in the Memoranda Rolls of the first or
second years of Edward I, in which the greater number
of them are dated ' (p. cecvii). On turning to the text
and to the table of contents we discover that three, out
of the eight, are dated in the first year, and none at all
in the second ! Moreover, one of them in the table of
contents (p. xci) is represented as dated ' 19 Edw. I,'
although, as printed in the text (p. 829), it bears no
date at all. Stranger still, in the elaborate biography
given of Adam de Stratton, we read of him under
Edward I : —

His name still appears in the Exchequer Recsords as
' clericus de Soaccario,' and in the first year of this reign
he obtained a writ of Protection in virtue of his office of
Chamberlain, to dispense with residence in his benefice in
the diocese of Lincoln, this being one of nine [sic] such
writs entered in the Red Book by way of precedents
(p. cccxix).

For this writ we are referred to p. 827, where we duly
find it— but undated. As Adam, in 1272-3, was only
' clericus de scaccario,' not yet chamberlain, we look
with suspicion on the editor's date, and with something
more than suspicion when we further discover that he
inserts ' Oliver ' as the name of the bishop to whom the
writ is addressed. For Oliver did not become bishop
till 1^80 ; so that he could not be so addressed ' in the
first year' of Edward's reign. His predecessor was
Richard, whose name at once leads us to detect another
blunder; for, in a writ of 1275 addressed to him

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE RED BOOK OF THE EXOHEaUER 61

(p. 1012), his name is extended by the editor aa
' R[oberto].'

I can truly say that hardly ever have I opened one
of these volumes without lighting on a fresh example of
this strange and hopeless confusion.

What are we to say of Mr. Hall's treatment of
the mighty house of Clare ? Earl Roger, its reigning
head in 1166-1170, is identified as Earl Richard,
under Hertford and under Clare, in the index; his
«nnle ' comes Gilbertus ' (p. 351) is not identified at
all ; and the latter 's son ' comes Eicardus,' the
famous earl of Pembroke (p. 205), is not even indexed,
either under ' comes ' or ' Eicardus.' It was only by
accident that I found him identified as an earl of
Devon (p. 1288) — who was dead at the time of the entry !
It is this wanton introduction, of error that calls for
such strenuous protest. Take for instance the family
styled Fitz Gerold by DugdalOj which held that heredi-
tary chamberlainship of the Exchequer on which, at a
later stage, Mr. Hall has so much to say (p. cccxvi, &c.).
The Red Book happens to contain valuable evidence on
its inembers ; but Mr. Hall, in his index, either omits
it, or mangles it by wanton error. Thus, on p. 102 we
find ' Galfridus filius Geroldi,' who ought to be (as on
the Pipe-EoU) ' Garinus filius Geroldi.' Mr. Hall
indexes this entry as 'Galfridus filius Garini,' thus
keeping ' Galfridus,' which is wrong, but wantonly
changing ' Geroldi,' which is right, into ' Garini.' The
same man meets us on p. 97 and p. 125, as ' Grarinus
filius Geroldi,' but neither of these entries is even to be
ibund in the index. He meets us again as ' Garin

filius Geroldi ' on p. Ill, and as ' Warinua filius Geroldi '
Digitized by Microsofi®

£ 2

52 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEB

OA pp. 119, 124, 135, 168, 169; and yet none of these
entries is indexed, though the last shows us this im-
portant tenant holding • no fewer than forty knights'
fees. He is again unindexed, for his Essex fief on pp.
94, 175, 729;' so that there are here eleven entries
(there may, of course, be others) wholly omitted in the
index, to which we must add those relating to his
earlier namesake on pp. 355-6. So too ' Radulfus
filius Geri ' (a scribal error, probably, for ' Geroldi ' ) on
p. 355 is an entry omitted in the index. But we have
not yet done with this unlucky name. The retflm for
the honour of Skipton in 1166 was made by its then
holder, 'Alexander filius Gerini,' as he is entered in the
text (pp. 430, 431). We have only to turn to the relative
entry on p. 40 of this same volume to find him (rightly)
styled ' Alexander filius GeroMi.' Yet Mr. Hall, in his
index, makes the error worse, by wantonly changing the
' Gerini ' of his text into ' Warini.' To leave an ob-
viously corrupt name uncorrected is, bad enough; but
to increase the errors in the text by this perverse
wrongheadedness is to make its official ' edition ' ab-
solutely worse than useless. And it is, throughout,
because of this very perversity that so misleading an
edition must be recalled and revised.^

But^ it may be asked, if this book is so hopelessly
wrong throughout, how could it evoke ' a chorus of
praise,' or run, almost scatheless, the whole gauntlet
of revitewers ? The answer, I shall show, is perfectly

' This latter entry is at variance with that on p. 78.
' For further instances of the wanton confusion of distinct fami-
lies in the Index, see my article in Oenealogist (July 1897),

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 53

simple ; and it raises, for historical students, a very im-
portant question.

The experts who are really competent to judge a
work of this character, based as it is on a complex
manuscript and dealing with recondite questions, are,
at the most, probably, two or three in number. If such
experts are, as I was, successfully prevented from
reviewing the book, its errors have every chance of
escaping detection. And this likelihood is vastly
increased when, as in this case, the editor is accepted
as an authority on his subject, when he has evidently
devoted great labour to the work, and, above all, when
his preface reminds us of his own words on Madox,*"
who wrote, he says, on the Exchequer ' with greater
;3how of learning than that bestowed on any single
institution of this or any other country, but at the same
time without being in the least degree intelligible to
other than equally learned readers.' Indeed, I confess ,
that I myself was, at first, completely imposed upon by
the great ' show of learning ' in the preface to the
Liber Rubeus. It is only when one checks that preface
by testing and verifying its statements, that one finds
section after section collapse and crumble into dust.

But the labour involved in such testing, page by page
and line by line, is so prolonged and arduous that no
reviewer will; or can be expected to, attempt it. To
take a by no means extreme instance, we read, of a list
of Cornish scutages on fo. 230 of the MS., that ' the
reference to this abstract can be identified with the
return of scutages for Cornwall in the eighteenth year
of Henry II ' (p. Ix). The scutage recorded on the roll of
the eighteenth year is, of .course, familiar ; but it could
Digitized by Microsoft®

64 THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

not possibly include a return for ' Cornwall,' which bad
not yet begun to figure as a county on the rolls. One
has, therefore, to turn to the MS. itself, where one finds
the scutage marginally assigned to the thirty-third year,
which, on reference to p. 61, is at once seen to be the
right date.^ It is thus that, at every etep, Mr. Hall's
statements must be tested.

Again, there is the ' show of learning.' How im-
pressive, for instance, is the footnote evoked by this
entry : ' Prior de Sancto Karlesio xl. in Coveham '
(p. 801). Here ' Karlesio ' will at once be recognised as
a scribal error for ' Karilefo,' Covenham Priory being
«a daughter house of the abbey of St. Calais in Maine.
Mr. Hall, however, appended this singular explana-
tion : —

Sic in MS. Read de Sancto — de Karleolo. Probably
the scribe of the ultimate exemplar wrote Cuthberto, and
this was omitted in the immediate exemplar as a doubtful
statement, the church having been traditionally founded by
St. Cuthbert, but really dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

Now Covenham had no more to do with Carlisle
than had Macedon with Monmouth ; nor is it easy to
remember such misplaced learning since Mr. Hall's
predecessor Hearne lighted upon Osbert ' Huitdeniers,'
Becket's employer and kinsman, and, failing to recognise
a nickname, thus solemnly expounded ' deniers ' : —

Sed quid sibi velit ' denariata militis ' ignorasse videtur
Dugdalius, quam tamen is facile intelliget, qui cogitaverit
' denariatum ' sive ' denariatam ' vel ' denree ' seu ' denier '
terrse, &o. (fee.

' The passage is cited for a total (summa) obtained by Alexander
(Sweref ord) of 84 + J + ^ + J knights. Mr. Hall says the items make
' 81, A and J.' I have reckoned them vei'y carefully, and make them
82 -f ^ + ^ -t- ^, which shows how very easy it is to be mistaken in

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE flS

Hearne's erudition, however, had not been ' made in
Germany ' ; an ' ultimate exemplar ' was beyond him.

This unlucky note has, it is true, been cancelled ; ^ but
another cries aloud for no less decisive treatment. It is
the misleading note on p. 13, with which I deal in my
paper on 'Alexander Swereford.' Here I will only
refer to its extraordinary statement that the Roll of
2 Hen. II does not contain the acquittance of the
Bishop of Worcester, although it is found in the Red,
Book extract on p. 661. One could hardly believe that,
on the Roll, the words ' et quietus est ' stared the writer
in the face, did not one find him writing of the Red
Book that ' in the present case a mediseval record was *
selected for publication for the first time in place of the
usual chronicle or annals ' (p. ccclxxvi). One has only
to glance at any list of the works published in the
Rolls Series, nay, one has only to turn to Mr. Hall's
own words, to realise the character of this remark. For
we are reminded on p. iii of the analogy presented to
the Liber Buheus by such ' familiar examples ' as Bishop
Kellawe's Register. Another instance is afforded by one
of those unlucky footnotes which have doubtless aroused
the admiration of the too ingenuous reviewer. It will
be found on p. 575, where we learn of the ' Honour of
Boulogne ' return that —

Another still earlier and hitherto unknown version is
preserved at the end of the small Black Book of the
Exchequer on the fly-leaves. The form and order of this
interesting list differ entirely from that ot the versions in
the MS. and Testa, but the readings agree substantially.

these oaleulations, Swereford may have made his total 2 too much,
and Mr, Hall i^ too little.
' See Errata, &e. (p. 1366).

Digitized by Microsoft®

36 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

For ' this interesting list ' is neither earlier (as can be
shown) nor ' unknown,' having been duly printed by
Hearne in his well-known Liber Niger 8cacea/rii, and
also, actually, in the Testa itself (ii. 275 ; p. 274) where,
indeed, it follows on the version referred to here by Mr.
Hall, but has not yet, apparently, revealed its existence
to his eyes.

And there is yet another, and still more impressive
note, which still awaits the same sad, but inexorable
fate. On p. 693 it tells us that —

In the so-called Scutages printed in Part I [p. 29] from a
previous section of the MS., the totals for the 8th year of
the reign [1162] are given by the author indiscriminately
in marcs or knights by a common symbol M. This has been
reproduced accordingly in the printed text, since marca and
miles are here convertible forms, the assessment for one
knight in this year being one marc, and it was evidently
intended by the Exchequer scribes that the sum should be
thus represented by a common symbol. A reference was,
however, given in the above passage [p. 29] to this further
abstract, which may be regarded in the case of these two
counties as the decipher of the symbolic letters of the 8th
j'ear, &c. &c.

Now the letter * m ' of the 8th year (p. 29) stands,
and can only stand, for marras} It therefore needs
no ' decipher.' But even if it did, the above abstract
could not, in any case, afford it. For, to take three
entries running, Earl Aubrey's ' xxxi m ' are deciphered
as 'xxiiij milites et dimidium,' Earl Geoffrey's
23i. Qs. Bd. (i.e. 35 marcs) as ' xxxiiij milites,' and
Walter fitz Eobert's ' vj I. et j m.' (i.e. 10 maros) as
' ix milites.' Is it not really intolerable that one should

' For instance: 'WiIIelmusfiIiu3EobertivjZ[t6ros] et j«>[arco?n].*
The sums are expressed in pounds, marcs, shillings and pence.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF. THE EXCHEQUER 5?

have to waste time and toil on these perverse comments
which impose upon the student, till exposed, by
pompons and pedantic verbiage ?

That they do impose, not only on the student, but
even on historical professors is seen — to cite no other
names — by Prof. Tout's review of the work in the
'English Historical Eeview' (XIII, 144-160). We
there read that —

It is impossible to speak too highly of the enormous
pains taken by Mr. Hall in bringing before the public this
great quantity of new material in a careful and scholarly
form.

It would really be unkind to comment on this de-
liberate verdict in our leading historical organ, bearing
in mind the revelations contained in these pages. When
we are told of Mr. Hall's preface : —

There are admirable sections dealing' with many of the
subordinate subjects treated of in the ' Red Book.' The
northern tenure of cornage, and its relation to castleward,
the constitution of the royal household, . . . the wrongs of
Isabella de Fors, . . . are handled with a wealth of illus-
tration and precision of knowledge that leave little to be
desired in all essential matters ' —

we know what estimate to form of Mr. Tout's
critical power. The section on cornage and its relation
to castle-ward is, I can prove, an absolute delusion
which merely introduces error, and my examination ^ of
Mr. Hall's readings in the 'Constitutio domus regis,'
and my analysis of his remarks on ' Isabella de Fors,' '
which positively teem with blunders, place the writer
of these lines in a most uncomfortable position.

' E. H. R. p. 148. ^ P. 31 abpye.

' Genealogical Magazine, vol. I, p. 1, et seg.
Digitized by Microsoft®

as THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUEE

Mr. Tout, it must be added, had read my article on
Isabella de Fors, and was, therefore, fully acquainted
with its destructive criticism, which was based, not on
opinion, bat on record evidence, and which in his
' reply,' Mr. Hall found himself unable, in a single
instance, to rebut or even to impugn.

It is only, however, because of its appearance in the
recognised organ of English historians that this review
need detain us. The following extract is conclusive.

Indeed, the more technical Mr. Hall is, the more satis-
factory does his method seem. The emendation of Dr.
Luard's text of Wykes, which turns the misleading monas-
terium, Quarrerim into the intelligible ministerium Came-
raricB is a brilliant piece of work. Equally fascinating,
though not perhaps so convincing, is the reading extra
legem tota Marohia Wallice for the obscure ex legem totam
Walliee.^

We have merely to turn to ' Dr. Luard's text ' to dis-
cover that it reads monasterium Camerarice, and that
the above Quarreria is a sheer invention of Mr. Hall's.*
Of the other ' brilliant ' and ' fascinating ' example
one need but say that extra is the word in Mr. Hall's
own text (p. 762), and that ex (p. cclix) is merely the
result of his strange inability to quote his own text cor-
rectly in his own preface.^ Here then Professor Tout
is convicted of accepting Mr. Hall's preface without an
attempt to test it, with the natural result that his
review is as worthless as it is misleading. ,

As one of many instances of misdirected labour * —

' E. H. B. p. 148.

' ' Quarreria; should be CavwaricB ' (p. oooxvii).

' Cf. siipm, p. 84. * See p. 49 above.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK, OF THE EXCHEQUEB 59

■the enormous pains' praised by Mr. Tout — we may
take the passage ' Willelmus de Pagrave dedit Gau-
frido de Ver j m. ad exercitum de Sparle ' (p. cclxxx).
Mr. Hall is perfectly right in saying : —

Now, this army of Sparle should have taken its name
from some objective point of the campaign (p. ccclxxxvi).

But he then proceeds : —

We may notice, however, that the returns of these
military levies were made in connection with the Norfolk
fees of the Earl of Arundel, whose Sussex tenants would
be, and indeed were, subject to similar liabilities ' ad
servandas marchias Wallise.' This gives us a possible re-
lationship between the military duties of the Norfolk and
Sussex Serjeants, so that we may reasonably conjecture that
this ' Exercitus de Sparle ' was a muster for the Welsh war
at Sporle in Norfolk (ib.).

Now the Earl of Arundel had nothing to do with

William de Pagrave or with Sporle. The latter was a

manor held of the Fitz Alans by William de Pagrave ;-^

and the simple explanation of the passage in question

is that William gave a marc ' de Sparle ad exercitnm.'

The words need only be thus transposed to make the

meaning clear. But Mr. Hall, admitting that the Testa

disposes of his ' plausible suggestion ' (about the Norfolk

and Sussex Serjeants), urges

that the proposition is not wholly an extravagant one
appears from the historical instance of the 'ancient Auvillers
serjeanty in the latter country [Norfolk] held by the service
of conducting 200 serjeants to Wales (ib.).

To me the number of the Serjeants in this ' histori-
cal instance ' seemed so surprising that I turned to the-
text for the details. Unfortunately, though Bartholo-

I See Blomefield's Norfolk, VI, 123-7. ■
Digitized by Microsoft®

eo THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

mew de Auvillers, the holder of this serjeanty, is found
on p. 480, he is not indexed as there, but as on p. 638,
■where we find, not him, but a tenant in Normandy of a
different name (who is not indexed). When we have
found Bartholomew, we learn that his serjeanty was that
• ducendi serjantes in Wallia ' (p. 458) or simply
' ducendi servientes ' (p. 480). Neither here nor in the
' Testa ' can we find Mr. Hall's ' 200.' Is it within the
bounds of possibility that he has taken the ' ducendi ' of
his own text for an impossible 'ducentos'?' It is,
indeed, scarcely conceivable, but the great ' promissa
blunder ^ proves him capable de tout.

We have seen above how wise may prove the re-
striction placed on footnotes by the rules of the Rolls
series, and how easily its disregard may lead to the
propagation of wanton error by an editor. And yet
there are cases in which foot-notes are not only
legitimate but desirable. For instance, when we read
that the heiress of Boulogne married Eeinaldde ' Munt-
martre,' a note that his name was Dammartin, not
' Muntmartre,' would be welcome. So too, when the
text further informs us that her mother, King Stephen's
daughter Mary, was ' Abbatissa Sancti Silipicii ' before
her marriage, we might have been reminded that she
was abbess, not of St. Sulpice, but of Romsey.

There is no doubt that the ' Table of Contents '
(pp. Ixv-cxlviii), a work of great and meritorious labour,
has impressed, and not unjustly, those who have
reviewed this work. The amount of toil bestowed on
it is obvious. But is it always trustworthy ? ' The

' Cf, sup-a, p. 37. » See p, 34,

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER fli

famous convention of Palaise ' as Mr. Hall terms it
(p. xxviii) is cited by him as one of the documents
which the chroniclers probably ' transcribed from an
Exchequer register. One asks, therefore, from which
Register ? Now the Red Book entry of that document
contains what appears to be unique information on the
seals appendant to it. If we turn to the Table of
Contents (p. xcix) we find not a word of this. The
student is referred to books in which it is alleged
to be printed, but he will not find there printed this
unique matter. Again, if the acquittance printed on
p. 1024 be compared with the relative entry on p. cxxviii,
the misleading character of this abstract will cause ua
some uneasiness as to those documents which wecanilot
compare with their abstracts for ourselves. Here is
another instance in point : On pp. 835-837 are some
interesting tables of ' dietae.' The ' dieta ' was, as
Ducange explains, a day's journey ; and the entry here,
' pro qualibet dieta ad brevia portanda iijd ' (p. 837), is
in harmony with that explanation. Thus these tables
record the number of days' journeys deemed necessary
for reaching the different counties of England. By an
incomprehensible misconception, the editor describes
this in his Table of Contents (p. Ixxi) as ' a scale of
diets for accountants in the several counties of England
allowed at the Exchequer.' It is, of course, nothing of
the kind. On p. cccxxxvii, he is nearer the truth in
describing it as ' a curious scale of diets or daily wages
and allowances for the service of the writs and sum-
monses of the Court.' But even this is not accurate,
for the ' dieta ' was the day's journey, of which the^

Digitized by Microsoft®

62 THE BED BOOK OF T&E EXCHEQUER

number varied, not the uniform wages paid for that
day's journey.'

With the Index I have dealt elsewhere already,^
warning those who may consult it that its local identifi-
cations cannot have been, in test cases, submitted, as
alleged, to scrutiny (p. ccclxxix). But I may now
take another of Mr. Hall's selected instances : —

The Prior of Horton, who holds ' Teddingthone,' had
no interest in Middlesex, but iii the old Kentish manor of
Tinton in Ash, which was once locally known as ' Tit.intone '
(p. ccclxxxii).

This, as usual, is most impressive — until we turn to
Hasted's ' Kent,' where we find the Prior's manor, of
Tinton lying, not in Ash, but far away, in Warehorne,
under which its history is carefully traced down.^
Why mislead the reader by placing it ' in Ash ' ?

At the risk of extending this paper to a dispropor-
tionate length, I must say something on a matter of
importance, the great Inquest of Knights in 1 1 66. Mr.
Eyton alone, so far as I know, approached the question
independently.'' He seized on the iotemal evidence that
one of the objects of the return was to secure the names
of the under-tenants who had not yet done liege-homage
to the king and his son, in order that they might be
made to do so before the first Sunday in Lent.' Mr. Hall
admits that the date of the returns is ' before Michaelmas
1166 ' (p. ccxix), so that the only question that could

' Further confusion is caused here, as elsewhere, by the marginal
reference ' fo. 13d,' when the right one is 'xiiid' (as in table of
contents), Mr. Hall having forgotten his double system of numbering.
* 2 Genealogist, July 1897 ' Vol. VIII, pp. 368, 373.

* Itinerary of Henry II, pp. 90-1.

' Mr. Eyton does not give his authority, but the return of the
Archbishop of Yuik (I, 412) is an instance in point.

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER 63

arise is that of their date within that year. The returns
had to supply the names of those who had not done
liege-homage, and must therefore have been sent in
before these defaulters could be ascertained and checked
off at the homage ceremony or on before the first Sunday
in Lent. Consequently, the returns must have been sent
in before that date. This much, at least, is clear. More-
over, as the king left England ' circa initium Quadra-
gesimae,' the reason of his wishing to have the returns
in time for the liege-homage to be done him not latet
than the first Sunday in Lent (March 13) is obvious.
Yet Mr. Hall, writing with Mr. Eyton's book before
him, asserts : —

Nevertheless a very general impression has existed that
the writs issued from the Chancery and were returned to
the king in person in time to be brought under considera-
tion at the Great Council of March 13, 1166 (pp. ccxviii).

No such Great Council is known to history : so it is
not easy to see how there can exist any ' general impres-
sion ' concerning it. It seems to have been evolved
by Mr. Hall out of some confusion, on his part, with
the great Council of Clarendon earlier in the year.'
To continue the quotation : —

This view of the transaction overlooks the fact that the
Chancery was at this time established at the Exchequer,
and that since such writs as these would undoubtedly have
been made out there and sealed by the Chancellor's clerk,
the process of serving them and of forwarding and receiving
the return would equally have been accomplished by re-
course to the usual practice of the Exchequer. We have
indeed almost positive proof that such was the pl*n followed
on this occasion from the remarkable memorandum affixed
in the place of the charter of Osbert son of Hugh, which

" See Eyton, pg. 89-90.
Digitized by Microsoft®

6* THE RED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUER

implies that when the Sheriflf had delivered the charter in
question at the (Easter) session of the Exchequer, it was
found to be informally executed, and therefore the Sheriff
was directed to take it back with him in order that it might
be rectified and returned without delay (see also the case of
Richard [sic] de Clare's charter (p. 410), which was ap-
parently renovated in the same way).

As it is always well to verify the writer's references,
we turn to the two cases he cites, only to find that the
' Memorandum ' implies notliing of the kind.

Carta Osberti filii Hugonis est in defectu, quia in ejus
carta, quam miserat domino JRegi, non erat nomen prae-
ficriptum, quam secum tulit Willelmus de Bello Oampo ut
cum nomine scripto reportetur (p. 335).

We are not told that the ' charter ' was delivered (1) by
the Sheriff, or (2) at the Exchequer : we read, on the
contrary, that it was sent to the King.^ So also, the
postscript of Roger* (de Clare) earl of Hertford it
addressed to the king personally, and runs ' ego, post-
quam misi cartam vohis' (p. 410); there is nothing
to show that his 'charter' was ' renovated,' or that it
was treated ' in the same way ' as that of Osbert son of
Hugh. The fact is that Mr. Hall has ignored, not only
Mr. Eyton's skilful inference from the fact that the
king wanted the names of the defaulting under-tenants
that he might secure their liege-homage before his
departure from the realm,^ but also his proof that the
returns were hurried,^ together with the fact that the
'hutch' to contain them was provided by the sheriff of

' William de Beauohamp carried it off (tulit) subsequently.

' Wrongly called ' Eiohard ' by Mr. Hall.

' ' Quia vultia quod si aliqul ibi sunt qui vobis nondum feoerunt
ligantiam et quorum nomina non sunt soripta in rotulo vestro, quod
infra dominioam primam xlsi ligantiam vobis faoiant ' (p. 412),

* ■ Prout brevitas temporis passa est ' (p. 418).

Digitized by Microsoft®

THE EED BOOK OF THE EXCHEaUER 65

Wilts.* This last fact obviously implies that the
returns were sent to Wiltshire (where the king was
before Ms departure), and not to London. After the
king had received them, and used them for his purpose^
they would, of course, be preserved, among the Ex-
chequer records.

This must be my last instance of Mr. Hall's un-
happy efforts to use the preface of an official work
for the purpose of assailing the results obtained by the
labours of others. Unable to grasp their arguments, or
too self-satisfied to do so, lie discovers ' positive proof '
or ' a most decisive statement ' (p. clxxiii), which
enables him, he thinks, to destroy those results, and to
substitute error in their place. We shall have tested
in turn his ' legal decision,' his so-called ' fatal objec-
tion,' his ' clearest possible evidence ' ;_ and we shall have
invariably found them to dissolve and crumble into dust.

Who would not be infinitely better pleased if one
could award to Mr. Hall's volumes the meed which
his enthusiasm invites, and which his labours go far to
deserve ? But the truth must be told. The net result
of his ' edition ' of the Red Book of the Exchequer is
that, instead of increasing our knowledge, it has in-
creased our darkness. It has been demonstrated by
me in this paper, and in other special studies within
these covers and without,^ that its vast Preface is
devoted, not only to assaults upon the truth, but to the
most extraordinary tissue of guesses, conjectures, and

' ' Pro una huehia ad custodiendas cartas Baronum de Inilitibus
(Eot. Pip. 12 Hen. II).

^ ' Alexander Swereford,' &c., in this volume ; and ' The surrender
of th3 Isle of Wight ' in Genealogical Magazine (vol. I), and ' The
E3d Book of the Exchequer ' in Qenealogist (July 1897).

F
Digitized by Microsoft®

66 THE BED BOOK OF THE EXCHEQUER

confusion that has ever appeared, to my knowledge,
in any oflScial work. On the Swereford question, no
doubt, Mr. Hall is speaking to a brief. He starts with
the pwrti pris that Sw^ereford must be right; and he
struggles to evade the facts that prove Swereford
wrong. But on every other subject he is doubtless
convinced that he is right. To him, therefore, no less
than to others, the evidence here adduced may come
as a startling surprise.

As I have already frankly recognised, Mr. Hall is
lacking neither in industry nor in personal acquain-
tance with the records of the early Exchequer. In-
deed, that acquaintance is probably unique. 'And that,
alas, is the worst of it. It is possible to increase one's
industry; it is possible to improve one's knowledge;
but it is not possible to cure that looseness and con-
fusion of thought which lies at the root of heresy after
heresy in Mr. Hall's inflated Preface. Is there not
reason to fear that he is constitutionally incapable of
seeing the facts with which he has to deal in a cold,
clear light? Without. that power he can never hope
to deal in the right spirit with points of diflBculty and
doubt. A man may postulate ' exemplars,' may have
mastered the monographs of a Liebermann, may even
lecture to others on Palaeography and ' Diplomatic,' and
yet in his conclusions be usually obscure and almost
uniformly wrong. For we ask for more than learning.
Clear vision, sound judgment, even intuition where
the darkness baflles — these are the gifts the task
requires ; and when to these is added the power of
lucid exposition, we exchange the ignis fatuus of rash
and nebulous conjecture for the bright and steadfast

rays of illuminating truth.

Digitized by Microsoft®

67

ALEXANDER SWEBEFOBD.

In no respect, perhaps, does the modern school ox
history differ more essentially from the old than in its
critical treatment of authorities. As has been observed
with truth by a writer in the ' Quarterly Eeview ' ' : —

History is, like other sciences, progressive. We no
more think of relying for the elucidation of certain pro-
blems in constitutional and economic history upon the dis-
quisition of an old-time antiquary than upon the precise
and ingenious Tractatug of a mediseval clerk.

It has now long been recognised and preached by every
historian worthy of the name that before an authority
can be rightly used, its value must be tested and its
character ascertained. When engaged in the study,
from original sources, of the history, in England, of
knight-service, I had accordingly to test the evidence of
the only mediaeval authority on the subject, Alexander
Swereford.^ In so doing I did but . follow the in-
structions given to editors in the Master of the Rolls'
series : namely, that the preface to each work should
contain, with an account of the author, .' an estimate of

his historical credibility and value.'
•
• ' New methods of historical enquiry ' (Quarterly Beview, no. 367,
p. 136). Professor Tout observes that ' it would be an affectation not
to identify ' the writer ' with Mr. Hall,' the editor of the Bed Book
of the Exchequer (Eng. Hist. Bev. xiii, 149).

' See Feudal England, s.v. ' Swereford ' in index.

Digitized by Microsoft® F 2

68 ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED

One would have supposed that, in the present day,
the need for such critical treatment was so universally
recognised that it would be expected &b a matter of
course by every student of history. Certainly, no one
could have imagined that it would arouse indignant
protest from any writer claiming to occupy that position.
To challenge my conclusions, to prove that Swereford
was right in his statements where I deemed him wrong,
was an obviously legitimate work ; but to claim that
^lis authority, because it was ' venerable,' ought not
even to be questioned, to proclaim It, as it were, ' taboo,'
is an attitude so amazing, so incomprehensible that to
others as to myself it remains an absolute mystery.

Yet this, from the first, has been the strange attitude
assumed by Mr. Hubert Hall. He adopts an indignant
posture as the champion of ' the estimable Baron, who
is now, alas ! denounced as a venerable impostor.' ' As
an independent critic has observed, with perfect
truth : —

he seems to be labouring under the delusion that
Swereford's personal integrity has been attacked — that the
' Red Book ' itself is under a cloud ; and these ideas we
believe to be groundless.^

King Stephen, we know, was ' a worthy peer,' but this
does not afiect our estimate of his reign ; nor does the
fact that Swereford may have been ' an estimable
Baron ' — and unrivalled, as Mr. Hall reminds us, ' in
coi^oris elegantia, faciei venustate ' — affect in the least
the question of his authority on knight-service. Yet I
have been sternly reprimanded for daring to question
that authority : —

' Liber Bubem, p. okx. « Atheiueum, 28 October, 1897.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED 69

In fact, we must regard this unprovoked attack upon
our ' venerable authority ' as a digression which merely
produces a painful interruption of a learned and convincing
argument..

Really, one knows not whether to grieve at the sheer
wrongheadedness of such an attitude or to Smile at its
downright silliness.

Of the personal character of Swereford there is,
of course, no question. But, to quote a phrase of Mr.
Hall's, ' the question that we have to answer, and on
which the origin and position of the Red Book of the
Exchequer really depends,' is this : are we to treat
Swereford's statements, on matters in the time of
Henry II, as those of an original authority with con-
temporary knowledge; or was his information as to
events in the previous century derived merely from
rolls of the period, as accessible, for all purposes, to our-
selves as they were to him ? Historians, till quite
recently, have failed to grasp this issue, and have, how-
ever unconsciously, adopted the former view. In my
own study, on the contrary, I insisted on ' Swereford's
own admission that he worked from the rolls alone,' and
observed that ' we possess the advantage of having, in
contemporary chronicles, sources of information which
he did not use.' * Mr. Hall's rejoinder that ' he had
voluntarily debarred himself from the assistance of
chroniclers,' and with good reason, for ' " wonderful and
fatuous " he had already discovered one of their favourite
legends to be,'^ serves but to illustrate his inexacti*
tude ; for the legend in question, Swereford writes, was
a popular belief ' in ore singulorum tunc temporis

' I^eudal England, p. 263. ' Liher Bubeus, p. clxviii.

Digitized by Microsoft®

70 ALEXAlifDEE SWEEEFOED

divulgatum,' ' and was not derived from the pages of
chroniclers.

For the orderly treatment of this enquiry, three
arguments have to be considered : first, the argument
of general presumption ; second, the argument of
special knowledge; third, the argument that Swere-
ford's statements are, in the test cases, not mistaken but
correct.

The first of these need not detain us ; for, in my
study, I frankly recognised that ' the presumption is
naturally in favour of Swereford's knowledge of his
subject.' *

The second can be brought to a definite issue ; for
this is Mr. Hall's case: —

There are several clear indications that Swereford had
access to Exchequer Records which no longer exist. This
is seen in his explanation of the Bishop of Worcester's
indebtedness (p. 13). Cf . also his references to the Exactory
Boll and Danegeld Roll, now completely lost to us
(p. 659).»

We will take first the last of the three. Swereford's
deference to the Danegeld KoU consists of the decisive
words, ' ilium Rotulum non vidi ' (p. 659). Comment
here is, obviously, superfluous. Of ' the Exactory Roll '
one cannot speak so briefly ; and yet the facts are clear.
Swereford has to employ exactly the same method as
any modern student would employ — as I have employed
myself — to ascertain the ' summa ' of the county ferm.
Had he had at hand the ' Rotulus Exactorius,' for the
early years of Henry II, he could have obtained from

' Liber Bubeus, p. 4. ' Fmdal England, p. 263.

' Liber Bubeus, p. oUvii.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFORD 71

it at once the ' summa,' which, on the contrary, he had
thus laboriously, to seek. His words are : —

Idee apposui plene hoc secundo anno corpora comita-
tuum et exitus Danegeldi, ut ex particulis possit summa
probari utriusque (p. 669).

Strictly in accordance with this principle, we find him
adding up the details, and writing : — ' Puit ergo
summa ' (p. 660) . . . ' Fuit ergo summa totalis ' (pp.
664-5), &c. It is obvious from this that he had only
the same means of obtaining the ' summa ' as any
modern student.

The third proof of his special knowledge is, we have
seen, ' his explanation of the Bishop of Worcester's
indebtedness.' The passage referred to is Swereford's
version of an entry on the roll of 2 Hen. II. That
version runs thus: —

Episcopus Wigornensis xl?., cum perdonis ibidem anno-
tatis, Sed idem Episcopus calumniatur quod non debet
nisi tmilites — xl mihtes (p. 13).

This, no doubt, makes nonsense. But it only does so
because, by an incomprehensible blunder, Swereford
has twice overwritten 'XL' (40) for 'LX' (60), the
sum accounted for on the roll (as Mr. Hall admits)
being 60Z. The converse error is found on p. 680,
where Swereford adds up 40Z. odd as 60Z. Os. Q^d.
(i.e. ' LX ' for ' XL '). Mr. Hall, observing the latter
discrepancy, had added ' sic ' in a footnote ; but in the
former case he was, perhaps,, unwilling to admit so
gross a blunder on the very first page of the list of
scutages. He appends, therefore, this amazing note ; —
Digitized by Microsoft®

72 ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED

This entry is very obscure. In the Roll the Bishop
pays 4:01. 10«. into the Treasury, and 19^. 10s. are pardoned
him. Presumably therefore he was quit,^ but the Roll
leaves this blank.^ In the ' Abstracts of the Pipe Rolls '
fo. 186 of the MS., the acquittance is given (probably from
the Chancellor's Roll now lost) with the note, aed episcopus,
ut dicit, non hdbet nisi I milites. Summa militum Integra
Ix ; calumpniatur a;,' thus clearly explaining the incident.

Now observe that no explanation is required of the
passage — when correctly given. The difficulty is solely
caused by Swereford giving it incorrectly. And even if
this were not so, Swereford's vaunted ' explanation '
proves no special knowledge : it is merely derived
straight from the Roll.^

A precisely similar illustration is aflfbrded by
Swereford's ' abstract of the Pipe Rolls ' in two other
places. Mr, Hall, dwelling on the value of its ' his-
torical allusions,' writes as follows : —

There are some interesting references to the ' guerra,' or
civil war, which is the feature of the original Pipe Roll,
19 Hen. II. Thus, 'Nonredditur compotus hoc anno de
honore comitis Con[ani] nee de feria Holandise propter
guerram Leicestriae.' The ' Leicester War ' is a new and
graphic phrase. Also, 'Nota quod hoc anno computat
Reginaldus de OornhuU de anno praesenti et praeterito, quia
totus ille fuit in guerra ' (p. ccxiv).

As to the first of these passages, a default ' per werrara
Leg[recest]rie ' is duly entered on the roll of 1175,* so
that there is nothing new in the phrase. As to the
second, it merely refers to this entry on the Roll : —

' This, it will be seen, is a tacit admission that the right total is
60Z., not iOl. (as given by Swereford).

' This is an amazing statement. The EoU appends the words
' Et quietus est ' at the close of the entry relating to the Bishop.

' This passage is found on p. 661 of the text, where the omiBsion
of the ' ut ' mnkes it nonsense. * Compare p. 30 above.

» 21 Hen. II (Ed. I'ipe EoU Soc), p. 8.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEPOED 73

Gervasius (sic) de Cornhilla reddit Oompotum . . . de
firma anni preterit! quia totus fuit in Werra.'

Now the first point to be noticed here is that, by some
inexplicable blunder, this ' interesting' annotation sub-
stitutes Reginald for the well-known Oervase of the
Roll. As I cannot suspect even Mr. Hall of such a
misreading as this, I am driven to assign it to Swere-
ford, who was doubtless thinking of Reginald de Corn-
hill, a later sheriff.^ But this, though bad, is not the
worst. The shrievalty of Gervase closed at Michaelmas
1174: he accounted at Michaelmas 1175 for the year
ending Michaelmas 1174 (when he was busy with the
war) but not for the year ending at Michaelmas 1175
(' de prtesenti anno '), when Robert fitz Bernard was
sheriff. How did Swereford come to make this ad-
ditional blunder ? We can, I think, account for it.
The Kent roll of this year opens thus : —

Gervasius de Cornhilla reddit compotum . . . de veteri
finna tertii anni. . . .

Et Idem de Ifova firma anni preteriti quia totus fuit in
Werra.

The ' Nova ' is an obvious blunder of the scribe, which,
on the Chancellor's Roll, has been marked for dele-
tion.^ Swereford, however, must have read the rolL* in
so rapid and perfunctory a manner that he failed to
observe this blunder, and consequently read ' nova '
as referring to the ferm ' de anno prsesenti' (11 74-5).''
But what are we to say of his editor, who selects,
as illustrating his knowledge, a passage which is merely

> 21 Hen. II (Ed. Pipe EoU Soc), p. 211.
' From 5 Eio. I to end ol John's reign (31st Eeport of D. K.).
» P. 207.

■■ This seems to imply that he worked from the Treasurer's EoU.
Digitized by Microsoft®

•a ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED

copied from the roll, witli the addition of two gross and
singularly careless blunders ? As with the scutage of
the Bishop of Worcester, the blunders of Swereford are
actually adduced as proofs of his special information !
Is it not obvious that the editor has approached
Swereford's authority, not with the intention of ap-
praising or checking it, but with the resolve to uphold
it even at the cost of the facts ?

It is needless to multiply such instances ; but one
may cite another of the notes to these 'abstracts,' which
' acquire a certain interest and value from the authority
of Swereford's official position at the Exchequer' (p.
ccxiii). It is this : —

There is an interesting note as to the duties of the
Usher of the Exchequer, as described in the Dialogus. It
appears from this notice that he was not only expected to
serve the summonses, but also the other writs of the
Exchequer, a circumstance not stated in the treatise, and
which was unknown to Madox, as well as contrary to the
later practice of the Exchequer (p. ccxiv).

No reference is here given ; but I succeeded in identi-.

fying the note in the official transcript of the MS.

Here again the special information is found to proceed,

not ^m Swereford, but from an entry on the Pipe

Eoll of 21 Henry II :—

Et Helie ostiario I marcam ad portand' summoniciones
de Danegeld per Angliam per breve Regis (p. 15).

Swereford noticed this interesting entry, exactly as a

modern student might have done, and observes, against

it, that it proves —

non solum propter summoniciones compotoa-um vicecomi-
tum de coraitatibus dari marcam ostiario, sed etiam pro
aliis brevibus portandis,'

' It is singular that Swereford did not notice the more striking
fact of Danegeld beine mentioned so iate as this.

ALEXANDER SWEEEi'OBD 75

Another instance in which a significant observation of
Swereford, as Mr. Hall terms it, is found to be nothing
but a paraphrase of the Record before him is treated
of above (p. 30).

We have now seen that even in the cases selected
as proofs that Swereford's work is based on special
knowledge, we can trace his information to records as
accessible now to ourselves as they were to him ; and
we have further seen that, so far from supplementing
their evidence, he could sometimes confuse it by
blunders, due to his own carelessness.^

We pass, therefore, fromi the general question to the
special instances in which I have impugned Swereford's
knowledge and authority.

Mr. Hall calls on us to see in Swereford the
inheritor of that ' science of the Exchequer in which
Bishops Roger and Nigel, and even Henry of
Winchester, were so fully versed,' . . . ' the last of a
long line of literate clerks reaching back, through an
unbroken tradition of Exchequer practice, to the
opening years of the twelfth century.' He is ac-
cordingly indignant at that ' severe and searching
criticism,' which ' a modem student ' has dared to apply
to ' a writer who has enjoyed the highest credit for
accuracy with contemporary and modern writers alike,'
and who is now charged with ' an absolute incapacity
for dealing with the subject matter' of his monumental

work.' His hero is accused of ' wholesale blunders in
#
' An iBStance will be found in his erroneous entries for Eobert de
Praers on pp. 24, 696, which are moreover (like ' Burchohillun ') of
real importance for tracing the relations of different parts of the Red
Book to one another.

Digitized by Microsoft®

76 ALEXANDER SWEREFOED

the method of interpreting his own records— blunders
which were overlooked by Madox and Hunter, and
practically by every subsequent writer on the same
subject ' ; and Mr. Hall devotes no small portion of the
limited space available for his Preface to showing that,
even for an historical sapper, Swereford's authority
should be sacred.

Before approaching Mr. Hall's vindication, it will
be well to show that the confidence of his conclusions
may be in inverse ratio to their correctness. For this
will enable my readers to judge what weight should be
attached to his remarks.

In his earlier papers on the Exchequer system, he
denied ' the employment of a " chequered " table in early
times at the Exchequer,' insisting that though ' nine
people out of ten, misguided by a preconceived theory,
have developed squares, marked out on the board, to
assist calculation,' yet the table was simply divided into
parallel columns. This theory, though ' wholly un-
orthodox,' was based on ' mathematical demonstration,'
and was ' the only natural, nay, possible one from every
point of view ' : indeed, ' none could possibly carry out
the known plan of calculation on any other showing.'
We should not lightly dismiss this theory : the point
is fairly arguable. But it is the writer himself, in his
' Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer,' who
throws it overboard- We there read of the ' chequered
table ' (pp. 6b, 68), and are explicitly informed that it
was ' divided into squares.' Nay, we are even given an
entirely new diagram, in wKich the table is shown so
divided. Unfortunately, the old diagram, showing it

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDEE SWEEE^OED 77

divided into columns, figures in both his papers
published by the Pipe-EoU Society.

Again, in his ' Court Life under the Plantagenets'
Mr. Hall tells us that the ' famous ' Gonstitutio domus
Regis, of which he there published a translation, and to
which he had devoted much attention, ' can be dis^
tinctly referred to the reign of Henry II,' though Staple-
ton (1840) had assigned it to 'about the year 1135.'
In his Red Book preface, however, we merely read that
'.Mr. Stapleton clearly proved, long since, that this es-
tablishment refers to the reign of Henry I.' He also
abandons, we discover, three suggestions on the text,
which, in his earlier work, he had advanced with some
confidence. Lastly, in a learned dissertation on Domes-
day, the Treasury, and the Exchequer, Mr. Hall wrote
as follows : ' I have not the slightest doubt in my
own mind, that Ingulphus saw the Domesday register,
as it now exists, at Westminster.' It would be un-
generous to dwell on this unfortunate remark : I merely
recall it for comparison with the equally confident con-
clusions that Mr. Hall has here expressed on the know-
ledge and authority of Swereford. I have not, how-
ever, here exhausted my grounds for doubting his
critical acumen.'

One of the conclusions to which we are led by the
keen investigation of the present day is that the tares of
erroneous tradition sprang up, in those days, quickly,
and that the men of the middle ages were often
curiously misinformed about events that had happened
not long before their own time. The admirable ' Dia-
logue' itself afibrds instances in point. We must,
' See further instanoes on pp. 4, 32, etc.
Digitized by Microsoft®

78 • ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED

therefore, appraise Swereford's authority by testing
samples of his statements, as, at the Exchequer, the
master of assays tested in the furnace a trial pound to
determine the quality of the silver paid in by the sheriff
for his shire. The test which I specially selected for
the purpose is the levy of 1 1 59, now known in historical
works as the ' Scutage of Toulouse.' Challenging his
statement as to this levy, I wrote — in words misapplied
ty Mr. Hall : — ' The value of Swereford's calculations is
so seriously affected by this cardinal error, that one may
reject with less hesitation his statement that the scutage
of 1156 was taken for a Welsh war.'

Let me endeavour to render clear to those un-
acquainted with the question what the error is with
which Swerfeford is charged. The two first ' scutages '
taken by Henry II are recognised by modern historians
as possessing exceptional importance, that of 1156 being
claimed as the earliest appearance of the tax, and that
of 1159 as ' a turning-point in the history of militaiy
tenure.' On these two levies Swereford shall speak for
himself. In his 'famous introduction,' representing
the result of his researches — a treatise, or 'libellus ' as
he terms it, complete in itself — he tells us that the
former was raised ' pro exercitu Wallias,' and the latter
' pro eodem exercitu Wallias.' Nothing could be more
precise than his words: his statement is absolutely
unqualified. Yet, although, as we have seen, Mr. Hall
ignores any rejection of Swereford's statements before
my own critical study in the 'English Historical
Review' (1891), Dr. Stubbs rejected it without hesita-
tion in his ' Constitutional History,' not only assigning
' Liber Eubeus, p. 6.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEREFOED • 79

the scutage ' accounted for in the Eolls of the fifth year '
(1159) to the Toulouse expedition of that year, but dis-
missing Swereford's assertion that it was ' for an ex-
pedition to Wales ' with the decisive remark that ' no
such expedition was made.' Gneist similarly held that
this levy was ' for the campaign against Toulouse ' ; and
Miss Norgate in her well-known ' England under the
Angevin Kings' (1887) quoted Swereford's words in
full, only to observe that * in both cases he is contrai-
dicted by chronology and contemporary evidence,' the
scutage of 1156 being 'levied specially to meet the
expenses ' of Henry's campaign, that year, against his
brother in Anjou, while that of 1159 was taken for the
Toulouse expedition. The question, therefore, as Mr,,
Hall observes (p. clxvii), ' whether Swereford was
justified in assigning the taxation ' of those two years
to the Welsh campaign, is a clear and a direct issue.
It will scarcely be believed that having accepted it, and-
having devoted no fewer than six and twenty pages to
an elaborate vindication of his hero's knowledge,
accuracy, and care, Mr. Hall triumphantly records his
conclusion that the levy of 1156 was 'for the Anjou
campaign,' and that of 1159 'for the Toulouse cam-
paign ' (pp. cxcii-iii), which, we have seen, is precisely
w^at Swereford's critics have maintained. Thus I
need not devote even six and twenty lines to refuting
Mr. Hall's arguments; for, as in the case of the
' chequered table,' he leaves one nothing to refute.

Doubtless, it may seem scarcely credible that after
triumphantly insisting that ' Swereford was better
informed than his modern critics ' (p. cxc), Mr. Hall
should, even casually, make this admission : —
Digitized by Microsoft®

80 . ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED

It will be evident that iil some particulars, such as in
his conjectures with regard to the scutage of 1156 and
the Donum of 1159, he has missed the point of the con-
temporary assessments for military purposes (p. cc).

For, though a cumbrous way of admitting that
Swereford was wrong, and buried in the midst of a
contention that he was right, it does reluctantly admit
that ' his modern critics ' have proved the positive state-
ments in his treatise on the scutages ' to be not only
tnere guesses, but to be absolutely wrong. It is there-
fore demonstrated, by this test, that where Swereford
makes an assertion for which there is no other authority,
it cannot be accepted as based on independent know-
ledge. For it may, as in these cases, be merely an
erroneous guess, expressed as if it were a fact. That is
all that we wanted to know.

It is specially, as we have seen, on the subject of
these two levies that Swereford's statements have been
impugned. The question of the scutages levied in 1161
and 1162 stands apart. On that question Mr. Hall
speaks in language so confident, that I am compelled
to explain how the matter stands. Swereford asserted
that the levy of 1161 was at the rate of two marca on
the fee, and that of 1162 at one marc. This assertion
had been challenged by me in the case of the lay fiefs,
and indeed we have only to turn to Swerefoi-d's own
analysis (pp. 693 et seq.) to see that it cannot be main-
tained. Yet Mr. Hall ignores this criticism, and
characteristically explains the difficult levies of these
years by an elaborate assertion, for which he does not
condescend to ofier a particle of proof.

' This was printed by Madox as his definite pronounoement, and
has been so accepted.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDEE SWEEEFQED 31

Those who prepaid their scutage in the fifth year,
did so at the rate levied on the tenants in the seventh
year, and again paid their second instalment in the seventh
year at the rate levied on those who paid in the eighth
year (p. oxciii).

Here is a most complicated arrangement, requiring
elaborate calculation. Yet none is given us. Nay, on
the next page we are given a solitary illustration, in
which the bishop of Norwich and abbot of Hulme pay
at the rate, not of 3 (2 + 1 + 0) marcs on their fees, but
at that of 5 (2 + 2 + 1), and the abbot of St. Edmund's
at the rate of 4 (2 + 2 + 0), which knocks the whole
theory ' into smithereens.' Apart, however, from this, its
intrinsic absurdity is shown by the consideration that if
class A paid its instalments in 1159 and 1161, and class
B in 1161 and 1162, both classes should figure together
on the roll of 1161, which would thus contain an enor-
mous list. A brief examination of the rolls will show that
it does not. It is deplorable that one should be com-
pelled to waste one's time on these fancies ; but when
they are thus confidently stated, and by a responsible
editor, the student will naturally suppose that they
have been duly' worked out, and will accept them as
established — if they are not overthrown.

It is very remarkable that while the chroniclers do
not mention these levies of 1161 and 1162, they do
mention the great levy for the Toulouse campaign in
1169. And one of those who do, Robert de Torigni,
was actually abbot, at the time, of Mont St. Michel and,
therefore, responsible for its scutage. One could not
wish for better evidence. Modern historians justly

G
Digitized by Microsoft®

82 ALEXANDEE SWEEEFORD

quote these writers as proof that the levy of this year
was ' the great scutage of Toulouse.'

Mr. Hall, on his side, insists on p. 693 that the
levy of the 8th year (1162) ' is to be regarded as the
Great Scutage of Toulouse,' and on p. clxxiii that the
levy of 1161 was ' the scutage of Toulouse.' Apart from
this slight confusion he supports the latter view by a
new piece of evidence — ' a most decisive statement ' he
terms it — claiming that 'this legal decision may be
fairly regarded as establishing the fact beyond dispute.' '
We turn to this conclusive evidence, and discover, to our
amazement, that it consists of a joke about the Pipe
Eoll of 1161 deserving to be cast into the Fleet Prison
because its evidence, as to a point of tenure, was rejected
in 1236. This story is found among what Mr. Hall
thinks ' highly prolsable ' were the contents of Swere-
ford's own notebook. Its sense is obscure, and its
casual allusion to the levy of 1161 being the Scutage of
Toulouse comes to us only through Swereford himself,
who, it is admitted, held that view. In other words,
Swereford's view is conclusively confirmed by — a state-
ment- of his own.

And if further proof be needed of the worthlessness
of this evidence, on the importance of which the editor
insists more than once, we find it on turning to the real
record, the Pipe Roll of 1234, where, under Surrey, we
read that the question was settled, before the Barons of
the Exchequer, ' per sacramentum sii militum ejusdem
comitatus.' It is certain, indeed, from a study of the
Bolls themselves, that the date 1286, given in the

' Of. p. 65, above.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED 83

' Liber Eubeus,' and accepted as correct by its editor,
cannot possibly be rigbt.

It is significant that on the Roll itself there is not
a word, in the entry of the case, about ' the scntage of
Toulouse.' So much for our precious piece of evidence,
' an authoritative statement as to the date and entry of
the famous scutage of Toulouse ' (p. ccli). It dates
itself wrongly ; it is not a record ; it is corrupt at the
beginning ; it ends in a joke ; and the ' legal decision '
was not concerned with the name of the scntage of
Toulouse (which had nothing to do with the issue).
Na'y, we have no real proof that ' the . scutage of
Toulouse ' was even mentioned.

That I may not be accused of bias in my criticisms
of Swereford, I may observe, in passing, that the entry
adduced from the roll of 1161 is duly found there in the
roll itself, but is said in Swereford's extracts from the
rolls, on p. 701, to be taken, with two like it, from the
roll of the following year. As this error (ignored by
Mr. Hall) to me seemed improbable, I referred to the
original MS., and found that Swereford clearly means,
as I read the MS., to assign these entries to the 7th year,
although his editor has made him assign them, in error,
to the 8th. Either Swereford or his editor is here at
fault ; but I do not think it is Swereford.'

I have been discussing above the levies of 1161 and
1162. But this discussion, it must be remembered, in
no way affects the definite issue raised by Swereford's
statement as to those of 1156 and 1159. It is the

' The student should be warned that Bartholomew ' de Chesney '
(p. 701) and Bartholomew de ' Cheym ' (p. 754) are identical, though
zidexed as distinct %^/e¥%^-Microsofm

a 2

84 ALEXANDER SWEEEFORD

latter statement that I made my test of his authority/
because it has been utterly rejected by others as well as
by myself. And, as we have seen, Mr. Hall himself
has had to confess that our criticism is sound.

But even as to Swereford's statement on the levies
of 1161 and 1162, he finds himself, it is clear, in diffi-
culty ; for ' the known practice of the Exchequer as to
the date of assessment and enrolment ' (p. clxxi), on
which he so strenuously insists, is

that the assessments levied for the campaign of one year
were practically accounted for, as we have seen, in the
rolls of the next (p. clxxxii).

And on pp. clxxxiv-v we are assured that ' the three
earlier ' scntages of Henry II present ' no difference
whatever ' in this respect. This is not, as he elsewhere
admits (pp. clxxvi, cxcii), the case with the first of
them (1156),' and still less with those which follow.
For as the Toulouse expedition took place in 1169, its
scutage should appear ex hypothesi on the roll of 1160,
and not on those of 1169, 1161, or 1162. This dififi-
culty, as I have said, must have been keenly felt; for
we are suddenly presented, in a matter of course manner,
with this desperate ' explanation ' : —

The simple explanation of the difficulty experienced by
all modern historians in the identification of the scuta^res
assessed between 1159 and 1162 is therefore this : that
contemporary writers and officials regarded the Toulouse
War as part and parcel of the French War which was pro-
longed for some forty years after the actual siege, whereas
modern writers have assumed (not unnaturally, but entirely
without warrant) that the title is confined to the events of a
few months. The testimony of a great contemporary his-

' Swereford distinctly asserts (pp. 6, 13) that it \\'!is assessed
(assisiim) in the second year, in which it was also aooonnted for.
Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFORD 8a

torian is, however, decisive on this point, and may be com-
pared with the legal proceedings above-mentioned : ' Bellum
,quoque Tolosanum,' &c. (p. clxxiii).

Now Swereford speaks, not of the ' bellum,' but of the
' exercitus ' of Toulouse ; and, so far from applying that
term to a forty years' war, he actually. appends a gloss to
his phrase, explaining that it referred to ' the actual
siege,' exactly as ' modern historians ' have held. The
siege was in 1159, and what he says of the scutage of
1 161 is this : —

Puit assisum ad II marcas pro exercitu Tholosse, scilicet,
quando idem Bex Hemricus obsedit Tholosam (p, 7).

It is in the teeth of this decisive statement that
Mr. Hall assures us that Swereford was thinking, not of
the siege of Toulouse, but of ' the French War ' that
followed. The ' worthy ' Archdeacon himself disposed
of this ' simple explanation,' when he thus, as if fore-
seeing it, spiked his editor's gun.

Having now shown that in the test-case originally
selected by me, namely his assertion on the scutage of
1159, Swereford is admittedly in error, I pass to another
matter, namely his ' dictum ' (ut supra) as to Exchequer
practice. My criticism here was this : —

He appears to have evolved out of his inner conscious-
ness the rule that a scutage, though fixed and even paid in
any given year, was never accounted for on , the rolls till
the year after.

The persistent assertion that the Ca/rtce Baronum were
connected with and preliminary to the auxilium ad filiam
mwritandam of 1168 is undoubtedly to be traced to Swere-
ford's ipse dixit to that efiect. He distinctly asserts that
the aid was fixed (assisum) in the thirteenth year (1167),
that the returns {carta)) were made in the same year (1167),
and that the aid was paid and accounted for in the four-

Digitized by Microsoft®

86 ALEXANDER SWEEEFOKD

teenth year (1168).' . . . This throws an instructive Hgbt
on Swereford's modus operandi. Finding from the rolls
that the payments made in 1168 were based on the returns
in the cartce, and not being acquainted with the date of the
latter, he jumped to the conclusion that they must have
been made in 1167, it being his (quite unsupported) thesis
that all levies were fixed in the year preceding that in
which they were accounted for on the rolls ^Feudal
England, pp. 264-5).

Every word of this indictment remains absolutely true.
Mr. Hall, I may observe, carefully ignores Swereford s
error in assigning the returns to 1167, though he him-
self is virell aware that they were all made 'before
Michaelmas 1166,'^ the fact being proved by one of
those very rolls from which Swereford worked.^

But what we have- to deal with here is Swereford's
dictum, on which his editor would like to fight the battle
of his accuracy, as he cannot defend it, we have seen, in
the matter of the ' scutage ' of 1159. That ' dictum ' is
found in his comment on the Scutage of Galloway, and
runs as follows : —

Et nota quod, quandocumque assidentur scutagia, licet
eodem anno solvantur, annotautur tamen in annali anni
sequentis (p. 8).

His editor waxes wroth at the thought that this state-
ment has been ' boldly challenged,' and asserts that ' in
every other instance than those of the three scut-ages
in dispute (1156-1162) his statement is literally correct.'
Well, we will take the most favourable test, the scutage of
Galloway itself; and by the side of Mr. Hall's ' vindi-
cation ' we will place Swereford's words.

' Bed Book of the Exckeqv,cr, pp. 5, 8.

^ ' At least we possess the certain knowledge that the returns were
preserved in one of the Beoord-ohests of the Exchequer before
Michaelmas 1166 ' (p. coxix). ' See p. 65.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEREf OED

87

The next Scutage, that of Anno xxxiii" (sic) Regis

Galloway, was assessed, ac- Henrici fuit assisum scu-
cording to Swereford, in the tagium Galweiae (p. 58).
32nd (sic) year, and entered
in the 33rd year-roll. The
king's movements in the
former year prove that
Swereford was again right.

, Let it not be said that I am taking advantage of a slip
on Swereford's part : as proof that I am not, I will next
appeal to the great aid for Richard's ransom, because
Mr. Hall fixes on this as a proof of Swereford's ' minute
accuracy.' I again quote his vindication.

Anno vi" (sic) Regis Ei-
cardi fuit scutagium uni-
versale assisum ad xx«, nullo
exempto (p. 79).

The scutage for the
King's ransom was un-
doubtedly assessed in or
before the 5th (sic) year,
. . . and it is also un-
doubtedly entered in the
• 6th year-roll, as Swereford
states. With reference to
this levy we have an inci-
dental proof of the Arch-
deacon's minute accuracy.
He terms this ' Scutagium
universale,' &c.

1 need not, it will be observed, discuss Mr. Hall's state-
ments : I have only to quote Swereford's text as edited
by Mr. Hall himself. The worthy Archdeacon and his
learned editor may be left to settle their own diilerences.
Were it needful, I could show with ease that the muddle-
headed Swereford could not even adhere to his own
mistaken dictum. The ' hasty charge,' of which, says
Mr. Hall, he is ' acquitted on the clearest possible
. evidence,' is one that can be proved up to the hilt : it

can be demonstrated from Swereford's words, and from
Digitized by Microsoft

88 ALEXANDEE SWEREFORD

his editor's own admissions, that his 'dictum' is
wrong for each one of his first four ' scutages,' which
are those around which the whole fight has raged.^

Although I have disposed of Swereford's dictum out

of his own mouth, I may add that its intrinsic absurdity

consists in its statement that scutages, even though paid

(' licet eodem anno solvantur '), are not accounted for

on the roll. Thus a scutage paid in November or

December would be accounted for, according to him, not

at the following Michaelmas, but at Michaelmas year,

i.e. nearly two years after it had been paid.' Mr. Hall

insists that no one

conversant with the method of Exchequer accounts, and
the legal machinery employed for levying the scutage,
(could) suppose that it could be accounted for within a
few weeks of the time when it was assessed, or began to
run (p. clxxxv).

I have never suggested that it could be accounted for
' within a few weeks ' ; but the student will be interested to
note how quickly, as a matter of fact, it could be accounted
for after an expedition which had not even been foreseen.
At Michaelmas 1173 the fermors of Hyde Abbey ' red-
dunt compotum de xv li. de scutagio militum de exercitu
Scottie.' ^ The expedition into Scotland was taking place
in this very month of September ; and as the Scotch Kinfr
had only begun hostilities late, it would seem, in tht
summer, this case alone is sufEcientto dispose of Mr. Hall*?
elaborate theory about the scutage having to be ' put ii
charge ' long beTore it was accounted for (p. clxxxvi, &c.)

' I.e. those of 11S6, 1159, 1161, 1162 (see p. 84, supra).
^ This, it will be found, is the only meaning that can be put
upon his words. " Bot. Pip. 19 Hen, II, p. 57.

Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED 89

Statement after statement in this vehement defence

can be similarly disposed of by turning to the words of

Swereford himself: —

Mr.' Hall. Swereford.

He has been censured for Et nota quod dona prse-

the supposed statement that latorum in summa pecuniae

the contributions of the pre- convenienti feodis quae ten-

lates were made on a fixed ent de Rege in capite, ita

scale. It will be found that quod ij marace compuientur

he merely mentions a ' sum pro feodo uno (p. 6).
suitable to their fiefs.'

I do not know where Swereford has been ' censured'
for making such a statement; but we see that his
words, when quoted in full, do describe contributions
on the ' fixed scale ' of two marcs for every fee. By
the converse error, Swereford ignored the levy of 1165,
although it has been shown to afford exactly the infor-
mation he was seeking, on the ground that it was not.
levied at a fixed rate on the fee.' That such, and no
other, was his meaning, is shown by comparing these
two passages which face one another in Mr. Hall's
text : —

' (1168) Apposui quidem (1165) Quod quidem aux-

istud auxilium in numero ilium in numero scutagi-

scutagiorum, quoniam cog- orum nolui apponere, quo-

nita summa marcarum, cog- niam probata summa auxilii

noscitur per consequens et propter hoc non probatur

numerus militum. - Humerus militum, &c.

His champion, though actually quoting his words,
substitutes a totally different explanation : namely, that
he -' reluctantly passed it over, owing to the obvious
impossibility of compiling therefrom a complete list of

' See Feudal England, p. 267. On tlie same page will be found
his extraordinary erro£*^eB*dlSiy*b'Wd»8?@loucester.

90 ALEXANDER SWEEEFORD

knights' fees' (p. cxcvii), for he 'absolutely rejected
isolated entries as useless for his purpose ' (p. clii).
This, it will be seen, is entirely different from the
reason Swereford gives.

But the climax, perhaps, is reached when, after
reading that the Inquest of 1166 was ' rendered desir-
9,ble not merely in view of realising the anticipated
Aid for the marriage of the King's daughter,' we are
told, on the contrary, with perfect truth : —

There is not a scrap of evidence to support the common
belief that the Council,' the negotiations for the royal
marriage, and the contemplation of a Scutage, are indis-
solubly connected with the execution of this great Inquest,
and it is perhaps to be regretted that so much time and
learning should have been squandered upon this vain
surmise.

For to whom is traceable this ' vain surmise ' ?
Jy whom is this Inquest ' indissolubly connected ' with
' the negotiations for the royal marriage ' ? By Swere-
ford himself. He tells us in his ' famous introduction '
that—

Cum Rex Henricus, filius Imperatricis, Duci Saxonise
filiam suam Matildem, nuptui traderet, a quolibet sui regni
milite marcam unam in subsidium nuptiarum exegit,
publico praecipiens edicto quod quUibet prselatus et bare
quot milites de eo tenerent in capite publiois suis instru-
mentis significarent.

The whole confusion is traceable' to Swereford, and
to Swereford alone. Nor can Mr. Hall have overlooked
the fact ; for I specially charged it against his hero
that ' the persistent assertion that the Carta: Baronmn
were connected with, and preliminary to the ausdliutn,

' This is ' the Great Council of March 13, H6C ' (p. cosviii),
which exiets oul^ in Hr. Hall's imagination.
Digitized by Microsoft®

ALEXANDER SWEEEFOED 91

ad filiam ma/ritanda/m of 1168, is undoubtedly to be
traced to Swereford's ipse diseii to that effect' (p. S5, supra).
Yet he carefully conceals the fact that the error he
denounces was Swereford's, and even upholds his
accuracy against my own indictment !

It is not strange that these tactics, with which we
have already met in the case of Swereford's ' dictum,' '
should delude the unwary critic, and should lead him
to accept the writer's claim that he has vindicated
Swereford's authority. For it could hardly be suspected
that evidence would thus be suppressed. But all the
greater is the downfall of the case, when from Swere-
ford's own lips we demolish Mr. Hall's pleas.

Everyone who has the cause of history at heart is
bound to denounce this mischievous attempt to rein-
state as a trustworthy authority a demonstrably mislead-
ng writer. It would not be at all unjust to say that, so
I'ar as concerns his avowed object, that of determining
the military service due to the King of England,
Swereford's calculations are worthless : it has been left
for modern research to discover the key to the problem.
In an official edition of a volume long famous among
our Public Records, we look, not for the impassioned
pleading of an eager partisan — suppressing and pervert-
ing evidence, but for the sound and balanced judgment
of a scholar devoted only to the interests of historical
truth.

' See p. 87, supra.

Spottiivoode & Co. Printertf New-street Square, London.
Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®

Digitized by Microsoft®